Tag: Italy

War Goddess

  By

★★★
“Should have paid more attention in history class.”

War_goddessThe Amazons are a tribe of women, who have seceded from the rest of the world, and set up a state purely composed of their own sex. For reproductive purposes, there’s an annual get-together with men – preceded by exercises to prevent any feelings except for abhorrence – and every four years, contests (javelin throwing, running, archery, etc.) to choose the queen. Which is where we come in, with blonde Antiope (Johnston) defeating brunette Oreitheia (Sun). The new ruler believes the tribe have gone soft, and also wants a return to a more egalitarian society; this doesn’t sit well with Oreitheia, or a lot of the other high Amazons, and a coup d’etat is soon being planned. Meanwhile, the annual Bonkapalooza poses problems of its own, as Antiope finds herself with feelings for Greek king Theseus (Infanti), who in turn feels guilty about having inadvertently sent the tribe into a Scythian ambush.

I don’t think I’ve often been so confused by a film’s approach, but this is so uneven in tone, I had to watch twice to get any kind of handle on it. For example, it starts with a jokey set of captions about how this maybe didn’t really happen, then swings in to the competition to be queen, peaking in seriousness with Antiope’s “pipe bomb” speech post-inauguration, which is radical to the point of almost revolutionary. But before you know it, you’re back to sub-Benny Hill antics involving bawdy comedy, or interpretive dance. This roller-coaster ride has Antiope apparently going from conception to birth in what feels like three days, without ever passing through pregnancy. It ends in a massive disappointment, which sees Antiope transformed from a warrior queen into little more than a simpering underling to Theseus, concerned that she might have to ask him for money to buy new sandals. Guess the sex war is over, guys – and we won. Woo-hoo!

Not to say there isn’t plenty here to enjoy, because it’s clear a lot of work went into this, and there’s no shortage of spectacle. Okay, some of it was work you might not have minded. According to Raw Panic, “Director Terence Young and colleagues reviewed 14,000 photographs and conducted “Miss Amazon” contests in Trieste, Paris, Hamburg, Munich, Rome and Nice to come up with the 100 women who are the Amazons.” Hey, it’s a dirty job, but someone’s got to do it… Those selected, “then endured a six-week training regimen that included riding, calisthenics and running from early in the morning until lights out. They did mostly their own stunts too; several girls had broken legs and one lost a finger under a chariot wheel.” If the results are somewhat uneven – some still look unsure about which end of a sword is which – most of the featured actresses are competent enough. Young is probably best known for his role in kick-starting the 007 franchise, directing both Dr. No and From Russia With Love – I was certainly reminded of the classic “gypsy camp catfight” sequence from the latter by a couple of moments here.

Yeah, if there are two scenes you’ll remember, it’s the brawls between Antiope and Oreitheia. The first is to decide who wears the crown, and involves the pre-fight application of “holy oil,” one suspects more for aesthetic than ecclesiastical considerations. The second is when Oreitheia’s midnight assassination attempt is uncovered, and appears to exist in two versions: one bikini-clad, the other entirely nude, depending on the market. You can catch a glimpse of the former in the trailer below; the less-encumbered, NSFW version can be seen in the Italian promo. Go ahead. We’ll wait for you here. :)  There. Wasn’t that fun? Credit is due to both Johnston and Sun, who take on material that often strays to questionable or even laughable, with a straight-faced intensity which is rather more than it deserves. It’s a shame that some of the others involved, on the other side of the camera, weren’t apparently willing to take this as seriously.

Dir: Terence Young
Star: Alena Johnston, Angelo Infanti, Sabine Sun, Rosanna Yanni
a.k.a. Le guerriere dal seno nudo
a.k.a. The Amazons

Little Rita of the West

  By

★★½
“Killing off the Western musical, almost a decade before Paint Your Wagon.”

I came into this almost entirely blind, watching it based on the title and the first three minutes off YouTube. You can understand my surprise, after Rita (Pavone) and her German sidekick (Dalla) take out a gang of stagecoach robbers, finishing off by gunning one down in the back, as he lies dazed on the ground, when they… burst into song? Yep, what I didn’t know was, this is actually a musical, designed around the talents of Ms. Pavone, who was apparently a huge pop-star in Italy in the sixties. Hence the songs. Okay, that makes a bit more sense. But it’s still an extremely odd beast, swinging from obvious spoof to apparent seriousness at the drop of a catchy tune.

The plot has Rita “liberating” gold from various bad guys, in conjunction with her Indian chief partner (Mitchell), with the intention of destroying it, believing it’s the root of all evil. That brings her into conflict with “Ringo” – sharing the same of a popular spaghetti Western character, but really a thinly-disguised Man With No Name – and “Django,” a not-at-all disguised copy of that iconic character, down to him dragging a coffin containing a machine-gun, and possessing broken hands. But she then meets and falls for another outlaw, Black Stan (Hill), who ends up sentenced to death after he tries to run off with Rita’s stash of gold awaiting destruction.

Much of this clearly isn’t intended to be serious, such as Rita’s rocket-propelled grenades which clip on to her gun, the local sheriff (Pavone’s husband and manager Teddy Reno) who’d rather be a lumberjack hairdresser, and the frequent references to “frontier humour,” whenever anyone makes a bad joke. But the confrontations with Ringo and Django are played more or less straight, and Little Rita (who is indeed little, at barely 4’10”) is actually made to look something of a bad-ass, punching above her weight. There are actually some genuinely impressive bits of satire, too, such as one victim asking to die “American style,” which means he gets to tell his life-story before the final breath, unlike “Indians and Japs.” The finale, too, needs to be seen to be believed, and is an absurdist breaking of the fourth wall.

However, for every smart and witty moment, there are probably two really stupid ones, while most of the performances would get their actors fired from Benny Hill for excessive comedic mugging. And the songs don’t help: I’m not averse to the concept (I’m a big My Fair Lady fan, and we’ve also seen enough Bollywood films to be able to cope with sudden jumps into musical numbers), but these are damn near irredeemably-awful. The result often finds its way into lists of the worst spaghetti Westerns ever made: if I can certainly see why, I’ll confess I was generally entertained, if only by the sheer “WTF?”-ness of proceedings. It’s more or less unlike any other GWG film you will ever see, and I’ve not seen any other spaghetti Westerns with a female lead either: for such originality alone, I can’t condemn it entirely.

Dir: Ferdinando Baldi
Star: Rita Pavone, Lucio Dalla, Terence Hill, Gordon Mitchell
a.k.a. Crazy Westerners

Satanik

  By

★★★
“The beauty is a beast, in lurid yet chaste 1960’s European comic adaptation.”

Originally, Satanik was the villain in a series of Italian photonovels/comics. But in 1964, writer Max Bunker changed the sex and this 1968 movie – set in Spain, made by Italians – followed, though Satanik isn’t mentioned by name (I guess, a little like Heavy Metal). The central character here is a disfigured scientist, temporarily turned beautiful by a potion which also removes all her morals and inhibitions. The body count mounts, and to escape the cops, she takes another woman’s identity; unfortunately, her victim was a police stoolpigeon, and those she grassed up are also very keen to find her. Plus, her medication is wearing off…

The comics had a broad range of supernatural themes, featuring vampires, etc. but the only extra-real element in the film is the potion. What delights here, is a villainess totally lacking in scruples, reliant only on herself, making the film years ahead of its time in this aspect. Less appealing are some truly horrible fashions, proving the 60’s match the 70’s for wardrobe atrocities.

Still, the soundtrack grooves, and some thought went into this, even if the ending leaves much to be desired, almost as if it was tacked on to appease the censors. Konopka was obviously cast for looks, as her (kinda tame) stripteases prove – in one, a homage to another comic-book character, Diabolik, the last item removed is a balaclava – yet doesn’t disgrace herself. Neither does anyone else, save perhaps the costume designer, though you won’t mistake this for less than 30 years old.

Spooky coincidence time: we finished watching it about 11pm, and went to sleep. Woke up next morning, turned the TV on…and the first thing we saw? Konopka’s only other film of note: When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth. Does this mean anything? No, not at all. But it was kinda cool. :-)

Dir: Piero Vivarelli
Star: Magda Konopka, Julio Pain, Umberto Raho, Luigi Montini