WHEN DINOSAURS RULED THE EARTH

(UK 1970) Directed by Val Guest

If you want entertainment, nothing beats shapely cave girls catfighting in suede bikinis. That and dinosaurs of course. The great men behind English production company Hammer Films understood this clearly, when in '66 they stroke gold with "One Million Years B.C.", a cool prehistoric adventure starring the stunning Raquel Welsh. Following the success of this silly but entertaining production, Hammer would exploit the formula in films like "Slave Girls" (68), "Creatures that Time Forgot" (71) and of course "When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth", a sort of sequel to One Million Years.

With no dialogs (just grunts), no clothes (just suede bikinis) and dinosaurs all around (nice Oscar nominated stop motion animation by Jim Danforth and Roger Dicken), the film was a delight for young kids at the time and was directed on location in Canary Islands by Val Guest, one the great Hammer directors.

To replace Raquel Welsh, Hammer men worked hard to cast a team of bombshells, including Polish delish Magda Konopka, English "Countess of Cleavage" Imogen Hassall, and in the leading part the sizzling Victoria Vetri, Playboy's Playmate of the year 1968 (as Angela Dorian).

And as if this wasn't enough, the first treatment of the screenplay was written by the author of "Crash", J.G. Ballard himself, who got here his first screen credit (although mispelled as J.B. Ballard, it is indeed him)!

When i saw this as a kid, I was mad that those great guys abandoned their next project, "Zeppelin Vs Pterodactyls", a Hammer production that never happened. Of it remains only a poster intended for presales of the film, that is possibly the coolest thing ever. That is after Victoria Vetri's suede bikini, of course. Enjoy.

THE CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF

(UK 1961) Directed by Terence Fisher

Classy English horror today. The British company Hammer Films, best provider of euro horror pictures in the sixties, offered brilliant reinterpretations of the great myths of the genre. But strangely enough, although their Dracula, Frankenstein and Mummy films all spawned sequels, "The Curse of the Werewolf" is the only Wolfman movie the company ever produced. Luckily for us, it is a very nice film and a good example of what made Hammer legendary : great directing, cast of very professional supporting actors, busty bombshells and poetic gothic atmosphere. All that compensates for an always quite slow rhythm by today's standards.

I won't go into the details of a story that you all know (we follow here the tragic curse that will lead a young man, Leon, to become a werewolf) if only to say that the script by Anthony Hinds was inspired by "The Werewolf of Paris", a book from 1933 by Guy Endore, novelist and screenwriter (he was nominated at the Oscars for his script for William Wellman's "Story of G.I Joe" in 1945) who would be blacklisted in Hollywood in the late forties (he was a member of the Communist party).

Although the original novel is set in France during the Paris Commune, the script is set in Spain in the 18th century, only because the sets had already been built for a Spanish-set drama by Hammer to be called The Inquisitor, which eventually fell through when the Catholic Church objected. The film was shot between September 12th and November 2nd 1960 (yes those guys were fast), by the master of English horror cinema, Terence Fisher himself. Leading the cast as Leon, the young Oliver Reed gets here his big breakthrough and gives a great performance, alongside a team of Hammer regulars. Men of taste will also notice here the half-Maltese half-English starlet Yvonne Romain as the mute servant, in a role that gives her the possibility to tempt the wolfman in us with her great assets (38C). This cute lady has remained a fans' favorite and easily eclipses the somewhat bland female lead Catherine Feller. Let's howl at the moon for Yvonne! Enjoy.

THE MAGIC CHRISTIAN

(UK 1969) Directed by Joseph McGrath

Ringo Starr + Peter Sellers. Now THAT's what you call a "cult movie". And an absolute must for Beatles fans (if you are, you have already seen it, so what's the point of me saying it? Well I don't know). A hippy surrealistic anarchistic mad piece of cinema typical of its times (Hippies!), "The Magic Christian" was shot and released  in 1969, just as the Fab Four were entering their final year as a band. The movie is based on a novel by Terry Southern (the author of Dr Strangelove), and follows the exploits of Sir Guy Grand, the world’s  richest man who , along with his adopted ‘son’ Youngman Grand, a former down and out, conduct a series of "experiments"-jokes to explore the corrosive moral effects  of money on the human race. It's a leftist fable, acted by the coolest millionaire stars of the time, who are all witty and English enough to play accurately with the irony of the whole thing. And probably smoked a lot of pot between takes.

The character of the adopted 'son' was not in the original book and was actually written for Ringo Starr himself, who shares top billing with Peter Sellers as Sir Grand. Yeah, that's not bad a cast. The screenplay was co-written by Southern (who has just finished work on Hopper's "Easy Rider") with additional material by Monty Python's John Cleese and Graham Chapman, who both appear in the film (Chapman in his first film acting role). Oh, and there is also a great soundtrack of rock songs (a new trend at the time), as three of main tracks of the film were produced by Paul McCartney and performed by Apple records' new signing Badfinger. Sellers, Beatles and Pythons in the same movie. Would could say no to that, really...

As if this wasn't enough, the movie is a festival of great cameos, including Christopher Lee (as a vampire!), Lawrence Harvey, Wilfred Hyde-White, Roman Polanski, Yul  Brynner (as a drag queen!), Richard Attenborough, Spike Milligan  and last but not least, Raquel Welch as the ‘Priestess of the Whip', all very happy to be part of this hippy hype hippo of a film. Roll and Enjoy, brothers.

BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA

(USA / Mexico 1974) Directed by Sam Peckinpah

Following the commercial failure of "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid" in 73, director Sam Peckinpah started to work on a low budget film, shot in Mexico. The idea for this project came up a few years earlier : during the shooting of "The Ballad of Cable Hogue", screenwriter Frank Kowalski, a longtime friend of the director, told him of an idea he had for a film : "I got a great title: ''Bring Me the Head of...,' - and he had some other name - 'and the hook is that the guy is already dead'." Peckinpah started then to develop the story of American drifter Bennie and his slow descent in hell, that would eventually become "Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia". The result is one of the great American film of the seventies and the only film of Peckinpah's career that was released as he intended, with no interference by any moronic studio executives.

The project went into production at the end of September 73, and as so often with Peckinpah, a man famously at war with the establishment, it initiated a scandal in the US film industry when the director was quoted saying in the professional newspaper Variety : ""For me, Hollywood no longer exists. It's past history. I've decided to stay in Mexico because I believe I can make my pictures with greater freedom from here". This upset the Motion Picture and Television Unions and they openly censured the director for his statement at their National Conference in Detroit. They also threatened Alfredo Garcia with union boycotts upon its release, labeling it a "runaway" production. In his defense, Peckinpah claimed that he was misquoted. Before the film was to be released, the unions relented on their boycott threat.

At the time of its release in 74, the film, too violent, too raw, too sexist, too dirty, too manly for its times (it was banned in Sweden, Germany and Argentina) was a failure, both commercially and critically (a few US reviewers still label it as one of the worst films ever. We will piss on their graves with great delight).  Truth is, the film is now a classic of America's seventies cinema, a brilliant nihilist descent, the poetic epitomy of melancholic real machismo, made by a director who was one the only real men in film. And there are too few of those. Bring on the tequila and enjoy.

DIRTY HANDS (LES INNOCENTS AUX MAINS SALES)

(France/Italy/Germany 1975) Directed by Claude Chabrol

Another film noir by Chabrol to conclude this week dedicated to the French director, this one released in 1975. This is an adaptation of a novel by suspense expert Richard Neely ("The Damned Innocents") that was published in France in Gallimard's Série Noire (France's most prestigious collection for noir literature). Again this is an exploration of a love triangle murder thriller, but with a bigger cast than Chabrol's usual films and professionally built up plot about lover and wife planning to killing impotent husband. Nothing groundbreaking though. Compared to the power of films like "The Butcher" or "Bad Girls", Chabrol's work from the mid seventies and on is becoming somewhat sloppy.
That said, the film is still entertaining, thanks mainly to the presence in the main role of German superstar Romy Schneider, one of the sexiest screen star ever. Give a try to the lovely precredits sequence and tell me you don't want to watch the whole thing. Enjoy (Oh yes, there is Rod Steiger in it too. But let me get back my kite).

NADA !

(France/Italy 1974) Directed by Claude Chabrol

After the string of great films he made between 1968 and 70, Claude Chabrol got access to bigger budgets and bigger projects. Those would prove to be fatal to the delicate balance the French director had managed to find between a crew of regulars, a "family" of actors and topics intimate enough to remain in the limits of his visual flair. After "Ten Days of Wonder" a disastrous adaptation of Ellery Queen in 71 with a stellar cast that announced the limitation of the director's formula, Chabrol would once again go for a multi lingual cast for "Nada" in 74 possibly the most ambitious film of his career. The movie would again prove to be a failure, but an interesting one, nonetheless.

On paper, "Nada!" is certainly one of the most exciting project made in Europe that year. The film is an adaptation of the third novel by Jean-Patrick Manchette, the most important "noir" writer in France at the times. Published in 72, the book follows a group of far left activists who plan to kidnap an American ambassador. Brilliant and sharp, it is a very disillusioned look at the far left revolutionary movements at a time when they fell into violence and terrorism all over Europe. Summing up Manchette's thinking, his character Buenaventura Diaz says : " Ultra Leftist terrorism and State terrorism, although their mobiles are not comparable, are the two jaws of the same dumbasses's trap". At a time when most of the New Wave had turned to Maoism, it was evident that Manchette pessimistic and ironic vision of revolution gone wrong could only appeal to Chabrol, himself probably very disillusioned by the political climate of the times.

Manchette worked on the screenplay and although it follows the book's story quite accurately, the result is disappointing both in terms of political vision and film excitement : just a semi-caricature of political combat turned into a mundane terrorist thriller. The fault is mainly Chabrol's, who is clearly not at ease at all when he needs to direct action and tension (the kidnapping, the chase and so on) and truth is, he is not more inspired here in the intimate political talk scenes. That said, the film is a very interesting curiosity for all fans of seventies cinema, if only for the great international cast that was gathered, including Italian hunk Fabio Testi as Diaz, Maurice Garrel, Lou Castel, Chabrol's regular Michel Duchaussoy and Michel Aumont. Film fans will also notice here the presence of Viviane Romance, the vamp of thirties French cinema, wasted here in the small part of a Madam. This is the last film she made before retiring.

Enjoy, comrades.

FTHE BREACH (LA RUPTURE)

(France/Italy/Belgium 1970) Directed by Claude Chabrol

Veteran French director Claude Chabrol has turned over the years into an old humorous bourgeois figure, who loves nothing more than entertain French TV and radio talk shows hosts with sizzling anecdotes about his long career. Maybe out of his admiration for Hitchcock, he has created a character for "director Chabrol", a relaxed joker who distances himself from the boring promotion job by adding his cynical humor to it.

However, that sympathetic old man also happens to be one of the French New Wave legends and is therefore often interviewed on serious film topics. Recently he was interviewed on "Violence in Films", and as usual made a very conservative statement, considering screen violence as pornography and stating his absolute refusal of violence in film, blah blah blah...  Forgive me, but I think I prefer the funny anecdotes teller than the film theorician.

Especially from a man who used to make movies like "The Breach" (La Rupture), an extremely weird film in Chabrol's career, coming directly after "The Butcher" in 70, and starring Chabrol's regulars Stéphane Audran and Michel Bouquet, with Jean-Pierre Cassel added in as a complete anti-hero. If you like Chabrol, you'll love this one. Potent, weird, morally twisted French seventies thriller at his best. I think I prefer the director to the film theorician.

THE BUTCHER (LE BOUCHER)

(France/Italy 1970) Directed by Claude Chabrol

As the legend (and wikipedia) now says : "The Butcher is one of the two films Alfred Hitchcock stated that he wished he had made". I don't know what was the other one, although Clouzot's "Diabolique" could be a possibility. All this to say that "The Butcher" is certainly the most internationally known film by French director Claude Chabrol, and arguably the best of his career. With "Bad Girls", I would say this is the one to pick if you want to give his cinema a try.

Refining the delicate balance between the New Wave psychological drama and the classic hitchcockian suspense mechanics that he had been looking to achieve in his previous efforts (sometimes wonderfully, as in "Unfaithful wife"), Chabrol sets up his story (this is an original screenplay he wrote) in the small French town of Trémolat, in Dordogne. We follow Helene (Chabrol's muse Stéphane Audran) a confident, slightly naive young teacher who is adored by her pupils. She meets the local butcher, Popaul (Jean Yanne), at a wedding ceremony, and they become close friends. The film examines how Helene handles her suspicion of Popaul as a series of women in the small town fall victim to an unknown murderer...

As expected, shadows of a doubt and suspicions are the basis for the suspense Chabrol constructs quite masterfully, although those are progressively dissolved into the melancholy that oozes from both main characters. The result is a very intriguing film that remains one of the best efforts in the genre to come from France at the time.

Interestingly enough, almost simultaneously (well, one week before the French release of "The Butcher" (on February 27th 1970)), Italians were seeing the release of a film by a first time director (10 years younger than Chabrol) that would redefine euro genre thriller for ever. A film that is interesting to see in conjunction with The Butcher, as a perfect generation clash, Chabrol's integrated classicism into post-modernism against pure visual flair and baroque intrigues to renew the genre: "The Bird With The Crystal Plumage", by Dario Argento.

THIS MAN MUST DIE (QUE LA BETE MEURE)

(France 1969) Directed by Claude Chabrol

At the time of "Unfaithful Wife"'s release in January 69, Chabrol was already into his new project, a revenge film called "This Man Must Die" ("Que la Bête Meure", in French), released in September of the same year. Based on a novel by Cecil Day Lewis (writing as Nicholas Blake), the film is a very tense thriller that follows the character of Charles Thenier, a banal young man whose young son is killed in a hit and run accident. Thenier resolves to hunt down and murder the killer, and the story leads to a very strong confrontation between the man on a vengeance and an extremely sinister character called Paul Decourt. The result is certainly one of Chabrol's best films, a very polished and superior psychological noir thriller, built around two great acting performances.
After a first great experience with Chabrol on "Unfaithful Wife", Michel Duchaussoy is rewarded here with one of the best leading roles of his career, as Charles Thenier. He finds his match in Jean Yanne, a fantastic comedian-director, who had worked previously with Chabrol on the war film "La Ligne de Demarcation" in 66. Yanne, a fascinating character and major innovator in the very corseted French pop culture of the times, finds here the opportunity to expand his range. And he impresses as the sinister Decourt. Film history remembers his stellar work in "Unfaithful Wife" as a rehearsal for his next performance with Chabrol, as he would be the main actor of the director's following effort and most famous film: "The Butcher". But that's another story. Enjoy.

UNFAITHFUL WIFE (LA FEMME INFIDELE)

(France 1969) Directed by Claude Chabrol

Directly following the release in March 68 of his incredible bisexual love triangle drama "Les Biches", French New Wave master Claude Chabrol initiated another exploration of the triangle situation and shot the hitchcockian "Unfaithful Wife" during summer '68. The film was made with the same crew and again with Chabrol's wife Stéphane Audran in the main role. It was released in January 69 in France.
This time, we follow Charles, a typical French bourgeois who suspects his wife to be unfaithful... The character is played with an icy perfect malaise by Michel Bouquet, a stageplay legend in France who found most of his best parts on screen with Chabrol. The cast also includes two great French male leads of the time, Michel Duchaussoy (in his first work with Chabrol) as the cop and Maurice Ronet. Basically la "crème de la crème".

At the time of the release, critics raved about the abrasive way Chabrol used the mechanics of classic hitchcockian murder dramas to deconstruct the behavior of the bourgeois class. All this is definitely true, but more importantly, Chabrol builds up here for the first time of his career a real efficient thriller around the wife-husband-lover trinity, purer than what its post-modern intentions may announce (is Clouzot really that far?). And he proves here that when he really wants it, he can be a master at very strong endings (this one and The Ceremony, made 26 years later being the best). Absolute classic.