So Sweet… So Perverse

So Sweet… So Perverse
Original title: Così dolce… così perversa
Directed by: Umberto Lenzi
Italy/France/West Germany, 1969
Thriller, 88min

For each Umberto Lenzi interview I see in documentaries, supplement material or on stuff like Mike Baronas' excellent Paura: Lucio Fulci Remembered Vol1, I get the feeling that he’s becoming (or perhaps is already) something of a Gene Simmons of the Italian genre-flick scene. There’s an ”I invented that, I was first” “I’m the prime innovator” tone to him – not that I’m going to argue him – it’s just that I’m always amused by people who claim to have invented, shaped and broke the mould for so many various areas. Just like Gene Simmons, who still to this day can’t see that the hard metal he thinks they invented was only makeup and disco at it’s worst.

Never the less, where Kiss music is complete tripe and could possibly only appeal to ten year old kids who didn’t have their own identity during the seventies and never once interested me no matter how hard I tried to see what’s supposedly so great about them, Umberto Lenzi did indeed stand amongst the forerunners of Italian genre cinema, and on many occasions did try out new terrain. It’s ironic that he’s so strongly associated to those gut munchers and tacky zombie flicks (not that there’s anything wrong with them) because I still seem to find myself becoming more and more impressed by his Gialli, and has a hard time forgiving myself for never quite taking the time to check out these impressive pieces back in the day.

But back in the day meant waiting almost a month for Greek Ex-rentals to fall through the letterbox, or gambling with Dutch imports or trading umpteenth generation copies with your mates and rarely stretching far enough to find these rare delights, but sticking close to the good old gut munchers and gore fests that initially drew me into the world of Italian genre cinema. Thank god for DVD and Internet traders, making all these fascinating films available in excellent or at least something that resonates as third-generation VHS dupes once again. It’s a thrill to settle down on the couch and get into a piece of forty-year-old Italian cinema for the first time.

Like many of the titles that get sold off as Gialli, Umberto Lenzi’s So Sweet... So Perverse is unquestionably not a Giallo. And even though is has a great title, it’s neither sweet nor perverse. But it is a pretty entertaining little movie that stays safely inside the thriller sphere and comes off more like an extended twist on the Boileau-Narcejac novel Celle qui n’était plus (The Woman who Was). Yes just like Henri-Georges Clouzot’s masterpiece Les Diaboliques 1955 and Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo 1958 and many, many more. Which makes Jean-Louis Trintignant’s choice of doing this movie odd as he’d starred in Giulio Questi’s La morte ha fatto l’uovo (Death Laid an Egg) 1968, a movie which plays of the exact same premise, just the year before. A movie that just like So Sweet… So Perverse adds a fair amount of the Italian seasoning that story which the original lacks.

Jean Reynaud [Trintignant] is a player kind of bloke who runs a chemical plant – but jus like most other movies of this kind, he never actually works – instead he spends time between his many mistresses and his depressed wife Danielle [Erika Blanc]. On several occasions he hears strange sounds from the apartment above his and Danielle’s. He also see’s a blonde woman rushing to the elevator and taking it up to that flat above theirs, but she’s dropped a piece of jewellery. One night he hears a woman screaming and goes up to investigate; finding blood outside the door he uses the key the previous tenant has left him. Inside he first finds a series of instruments, well knives, handcuffs and a good old cat o’nine tails that obviously make up someone’s kinky fetish, before surprising Nicole [Caroll Baker in her second of four movies directed by Lenzi] She tells him a sad tale of despair and how photographer Klaus [Horst Frank] holds her as a sadistic sex toy ever since raping and tormenting her during a photo shoot years ago. All shown in a great boldly coloured surreal flashback. Jean, being stupendously gullible falls head over heels in love with her and they take off for a few days to get Nicole away from the fiendish Klaus.

But their love escapade quickly goes sour when Nicole during a moment of serenity decides to spill the beans and reveals that she’s merely bait in a sinister plan to lure Jean into an affair with her and then kill him. Her former lover Klaus has been paid 25.000 to get rid of Jean, but she has no idea of who paid the killer. Jean comforts her and says that he lays no blame on her. Later that night in the one scene that has any Gialli quality to it Klaus wanders the flat, flips the switches on the power and tries to kills Nicole. Returning home, Jean tells his wife Danielle that he wants’ a divorce as Nicole is the one he really loves, at the same time he’s interrupted by a desperate phone call from Nicole who claims to have proof of who wants’ Jean dead.

Jean waits until midnight and then goes upstairs to Nicole’s flat only to find Klaus waiting for him. A fight starts that even wakens Danielle, who obviously also goes up to the flat and get’s there just in time to see what looks like Klaus knifing Jean.

So with Jean presumably dead and his body disposed of, the plot tightens, and even Danielle receives some wonderfully stylish death threats which all seem to be coming from Jean! There’s the Boileau-Narcejac novel coming back to make itself reminded. Danielle the wife is left to inherit nothing as Jean decided to leave it all to his new mistress Nicole. But as there’s still a third of the movie left, there’s a snag, and Klaus wants’ more money not to expose their deadly liaison.

From there on though it takes off in a complexly new direction, which isn’t part of the original source, but unfortunately not original enough to break new ground. You will find that you are triggered to solve the plot and figure out who’s playing whom for the wealth of Jean Reynaud, as it could be anyone of the three suspicious characters behind the fiendish plot. But that’s about it and when the climax has been reached it’s somewhat unsatisfying. Sure there is a decent twist to the end, but as mentioned not one that stands out but one that had already been done before and would be done again.

So why do I say that this isn’t a Giallo? Well first and foremost it holds no traits from that genre, and where there’s no red herrings in the shape of masked murderer or strange characters sneaking around, no cryptic devices or visual keys either, and it becomes more of a classic thriller than anything else. With that said though it’s definitely one of those movies that easily could have become a Gialli and does use a few convention gimmicks such as Trintignant’s snooping around in the first two thirds, which automatically designates him as an amateur sleuth of kinds. But that’s as far as it goes, and like I mentioned above the one single scene to be reminiscent of Gialli is the one with Klaus in the apartment, but Lenzi chooses to reveal that it’s Klaus before one has a real chance of starting to ponder who it may be. If it where to qualify into Giallo territory, he should have kept Klaus hidden and indicated that it might have been Danielle, or someone else who was stalking the couple.

There are several of these small scenes that make me feel that the movie misses the ball on some occasions. The first woman that we see Trintignant in bed with is his “rival” Mr Valmont’s [Giovanni Di Bendetto] wife Helene [Helga Liné], there’s an obvious tension between them, and even in the scenes where Reynaud’s family socializes with the Valmont’s. There’s even a scene where the two men shoot clay pigeons and Mr. Valmont “accidently” fires off a shot that just misses Jean’s head. So in that minor subplot there is a great source of red herring material that I feel is completely unused. They could have easily used one or both the Valmont’s as a possible suspect for wanting Reynaud dead, but unfortunately don’t.

But keep in mind that the Giallo was still not defined in any concrete way at this time, and So Sweet… So Perverse certainly does explore images and lines of narrative that are close to the Giallo. It is a movie that undoubtedly is delicately moving towards the Giallo area, but Lenzi still needed a few years to get all the pieces into place before perfecting his Giallo traits.

The masterful Ernesto Gastaldi wrote his screenplay from a story by producer Luciano Martino and Massimo D’Avak. D’Avak who would together with Francesco Barilli script Aldo Lado’s Chi l’ha vista morire? (Who Saw Her Die?) 1972 and Lenzi’s first cannibal flick Il paese del sesso selvaggio (The Man From Deep River) 1972. Two years later D’Avak and Barilli would write the script to Barilli’s debut feature, Il profumo della signora in nero (The Perfume of a Lady in Black) 1974 at which time the Giallo had found it’s tricks and traits.

Executive producer Sergio Martino may have worked side by side with Ernesto Gastaldi on some great movies previous to this one, but it would be the string of magnificent movies that they would make between 1971-1975 with Martino directing that would be their landmark pieces together. In only a few years the genre had become more firm in its language and most of the classic devices and visuals that So Sweet… So Perverse lacks had become standard.

One of the main things to irritate me with this movie is the opening sequence. It starts off with Ortolani’s great score, this time in its’ theme version with lyrics by Norman Newell who wrote the lyrics to Ortolani’s hit More off Mondo Cane 1962, and sung by J. Vincent Edwards. The tempo is fast, showing Trintignant’s Jean Reynaud driving his yellow car through along the roads of Paris – so once again the movies plot space is shown through the opening credits.

Editor Eugenio Alabiso throws in some random images as the scene moves forth, and this is where I start to question what’s going on, as these seemingly random images – the hunting rifle in the back seat and a close up on Helene Valmont’s earring – and having seen a couple of these vehicles, you know that there’s always indicators and referents to important stuff being flashed at the audience every now and then… but these things have absolutely nothing to do with the movie or it’s plot! It’s irritating as it instead leads thoughts off on a trail that never is intended, and possibly another reason why I feel that the Valmont's are underused too...

And what about that Riz Ortolani score? Well it’s a real wonderful piece, especially the suave and lush croonery vocal version, but unfortunately the rest is mostly a variation on the theme that returns in various forms. The track Why? is so lush that Lenzi reused it three years later in the movie which may possibly be his best Gialli of them all, Sette orchidee macchiate di rosso (Seven Bloodstained Orchids) 1972. Never the less it’s once again a testament to the great Ortolani who sadly still hasn’t really received the recognition he should be having. Where Morricone still can pack the likes of the Royal Albert Hall in London, UK, I’d happily pay money to see Ortolani conduct a full orchestra playing his great scores.

Even though I say that So Sweet… So Perverse isn’t a Gialli, it is an important movie in the evolution of Lenzi’s filmography that lead up to those great Gialli and Poliziotteschi films he made only a few years later. It’s an entertaining piece, that definitely get’s you involved, even though you may be able to foresee where it’s going at an early stages. And despite the fact that it’s more of a thriller than Giallo it’s still a neat piece of stylish cinema that you should check out if you are into Umberto Lenzi’s great movies.

Image:
2.35:1 Anamorphic

Audio:
Mono – English dialogue presumably lifted from separate source as there still is not a widescreen, English language version officially released yet.

Extras:
None. But instead you get a splendid presentation of the movie, as this is one of those great FanDubs where one enthusiastic genius has taken the audio from one source and used the great widescreen image so that we can all enjoy this film without the shitty cropping that most old video tapes used to present the movies in.

Here's that annoying opening for you, and that grand vocal track by the great Riz Ortolani and Norman Newell featuring J. Vincent Edwards.

Human Cobras

Human Cobras
Original Title: L’uomo più velenoso del cobra
Directed by: Bitto Albertini
Italy / Spain, 1971
Thriller / Mystery, 95min
Distributed by: Mya Entertainment

Bitto Albertini [born Adalberto Albertini - directing here under his Albert J. Walkner pseudonym] is not a name that one finds in my quick list of genre theatre fix too often, I’ve never really been a fan of his work, and find his movies pretty boring. In my book there aren’t too many title’s that pop out and catch my attention at all, and the ones I have seen, didn’t really make an impression as I when researching him realized that I have and had seen several of his other works.

His sequel/cash in on Luigi Cozzi’s Star Crash 1978, the rather vague Giochi erotici nella 3a galassia (Erotic Games in the Third Galaxy – A.k.a. Star Crash 2) 1981 is a disappointment compared to the campy original, his Mondo movies made at the end of his career as a director Naked and Cruel 1984, and Naked and Cruel2 1985, are quite dull and made ten years to late, as many of the areas had already been covered in previous Mondo entries bring nothing new with them.

I feel that it’s fair to say that Albertini’s claim to fame is for snatching up the success of Just Jaekin’s Emmanuelle 1974, and putting that unique Italian spin on it and making a star out of Laura Gemser, with the film Black Emanuelle 1975. Hence giving Joe D’Amato a star and source to exploit and return to over and over again for the next decade.

But that’s not where we are going to go today, as the movie that actually made me go Hmmm… what else has this guy made? is as far away from the odder genres as one can go. The movie Human Cobras is, even though in some aspects is kind of tricky to pigeonhole, only a good old action-mystery plot movie. It would be easy to claim that it’s a rather tepid Giallo, which many other reviewers have, but that would be unfair, as it really isn’t a Giallo at all. It is simply a mystery thriller that uses some vague Gialli traits along the way.

Any non-domestic movie that starts with shots of my hometown Stockholm, is going to get my attention at least for a few minutes, and Human Cobras starts with a great montage of leading man Tony Garden [George Ardisson] jumping into an old Volvo 242 and zooming around the city’s views only to skid to a halt and fight a masked man who stops him in the middle of nowhere – or Riddarholmen if you know your Stockholm geography. This sets up Tony as a man on the run, and his girlfriend getting worked up, asking him; “Do you think it was them?” brings us to the understanding that something has gone down previously which is forcing him to stay in hiding. A knock on the door delivers both a short sequence of suspense and the enticing incident – Tony’s brother Johnny has been murdered and he tells his girlfriend that he has to go back… These first five minutes are suggestive, and work like a charm to lure the audience in. It continues in the same vibe as Tony dreams about the past during his flight back to New York. We learn from his dream, that there’s a woman somewhere along the line that he still loves – no it’s not the one he just left behind, but another woman he’s left previously – and that he was in some sort of trouble that lead to a contract being put out on him. Luckily for Tony the guy with the contract can’t kill Tony when he holds him in his sights and tells Tony to get the heck out of the country, get out or I’ll have to kill you. So with the plot firmly established, Tony the gangster who once took to hiding abroad has returned to the place he once was banished from to avenge his brother’s death, the movie gets cracking.

Tony smokes, shoves, shuffles and punches his way through a series of thugs and gangsters in his quest to find his brother Johnny’s killer. He also meets up with Johnny’s girlfriend Leslie [Erika Blanc –from Mario Bava’s Kill Baby Kill 1966, Emilio Miraglia's The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave 1971 and Jean Brismeé's The Devil’s Nightmare 1971] who turns out to be the woman from Tony’s airborne dream. She also tells Tony what happened on the evening that Johnny got killed, giving Ardisson a chance to play the role of Johnny too. Eventually Tony comes face to face with Archie, who once held the contract on his life, and starts understanding that the murder of Johnny may not have been an action towards Tony, but something much more sinister…

What was Johnny actually up to? The leads take Tony on yet another flight, this time to Kenya, where Johnny’s business partner George MacGreeves [Alberto de Mendoza – Lucio Fulci’s Lizard in a Woman’s Skin, Sergio Martino’s The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh, and Case of the Scorpions Tail - all 1971 - what a great year for Gialli!] obviously becomes Tony’s prime suspect. In Nairobi, he encounters Clara [Janine Reynaud – Jess Franco’s Succubus 1968, Sadist Erotica 1969 and Kiss Me, Monster 1969, not to forget… Sergio Martino’s Case of the Scorpions Tail 1971] Johnny’s girl away from home, and also starts to become more and more paranoid that the tail that followed him from Stockholm to New York also is on his heels in Africa. But being as close as he is to his main suspect, George, that’s the lead that Tony must follow up to the very end where a series of ominous plot twists actually make it a time worthy investment.

It’s also in this later half where the Gialli traits are introduced as there is a suspicious person [Fernando Hilbeck – who also played Guthrie the tramp zombie in Jorge Grau’s Let Sleeping Corpses Lie 1974, and Pedro Almovodar’s Pepi, Luci, Bom 1980] constantly following the footsteps of Tony. Who is this guy? Is it one of he hit men still out to nail Tony and collect the contract payment? Is it Johnny’s killer? Just who is he – and what does he want? And to add to the mystery, he also makes some Gialli like phone calls where he breaths heavily down the receiver and kills his victims with a straight razor. Then there’s the grand finale, an ending that definitely makes one think of many great Gialli endings, but as mentioned, these are only traits used and it doesn’t make the movie a Giallo. Albertini also sneaks in some goth-spook moves too during the latter half as Leslie thinks she’s seeing Johnny walking the grounds outside the African mansion, but nobody ever called this movie a ghost story did they.

I found myself thinking of Mike Hodges’ Get Carter 1971 on many occasions, and that’s not too strange either, as the initial premise; The gangster brother going back to “the forbidden zone” to investigate and avenge the murder of his brother is the exact plot of Get Carter.

After my down putting of Albertini in the opening of this bit, I feel that I may have to go back on my word there, as I actually enjoyed Human Cobras. Sure it has it’s flaws, and there are some issues with the movie that take some of the impact away, but putting it in context of the genre movies of the time, it’s a watchable movie and grows the longer you stay with it. Now this may be thanks to the script by Eduardo Manzanos Borchero and Ernesto Gastaldi, who together and each separately wrote scripts for some of the best genre pieces to come out of Italy and Spain during the seventies and eighties. Producer Luciano Martino also receives writing credit on the movie, but I still feel that it’s the teamwork of Gastaldi and Borchero that make this one stand out. Obviously it’s nowhere near their Gialli masterpieces like Sergio Martino’s The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh, or Case of the Scorpions Tail, but I have already pointed out that the movie isn’t a Giallo, but a murder mystery flick.

Also a movie with a Stelivo Cipriani score to its name will add an extra attraction to it for my liking. I’m a huge fan of Cipriani’s work and frequently play his music as I work, write or simply feel like winding down. Cipriani’s pieces heard in Human Cobras is somewhat of a mixed bag, some music may have been, and probably was, written for the movie, but many others are painfully familiar, there’s a track that has the exact same bass line as Blue Oyster Cult’s Don’t Fear the Reaper which wasn’t to be released for another five years to come, and I’m certain there’s a track from Riccardo Freda’s The Iguana With a Tongue of Fire 1971 in there too. But most surprisingly is that there’s two tracks off Cipriani’s soundtrack to Piero Schivazappa’s Femina Ridens – Sophisticated Shake and Femina Ridens (Versione Cantata) from the movie. Which by the way also features the magnificent Edda Dell’Orso’s voice talents too. Which innovatively enough is played on the radio as Tony takes a postcoital shower and Clara meets her death at the hands of the killer.

I’m glad that I gave the movie a shot, especially with my aversion towards Albertini in mind, because while I thought it would be a great movie to nod in and out of n the couch, it caught me off guard me by being an entertaining little piece, that engaged me, lured me in and had me thinking in the wrong lines on a few occasions. Something that doesn’t happen all to often, but gives a kick when it does.

On the down side, I can’t really understand why the team at Mya Entertainment gave it such a shoddy release? With the excellent NoShame and some of the Mya Releases in mind, this one is in real poor shape. The rather tacky print which unfortunately after the almost aspect ratio credit sequence moves in to a hideous full frame version making some scenes look ludicrous really hurts the movie. I hope that this isn’t a standard that Mya aim to continue with, as it gives me a feeling that they might be focusing more on releasing semi rare titles instead of releasing state of the art releases that will, and are becoming collectors items.

Image:

1.33:1 Full frame

Audio:

Dolby Digital Mono, Italian Dialogue with optional English subtitles

Extras:

This is where the lack of extras becomes painfully apparent. There’s not even a trailer for the film.