Reviews

Gathered in the great family villa for listening to the last will of a very rich owner of diamond mines that has just been killed, his relatives – that hate each other heartily – find that they have to spend a whole month in the vast estate, so that the pretenders to the legacy cut down from seven to three. While the various characters get busy scheming complex plans that bring the others one to eliminate reciprocally, an old Scotland Yard detective do his best to identify the perpetrator of the first crime that has set in motion the complex massacre game he's now witnessing. At the end truth will out; and the only inheritor will be the most unexpected. Interesting for its potential – and it's no accident that the story comes from the expert Ernesto Gastaldi ("Lo Strano Vizio Della Signora Wardh", 1971 by Sergio Martino) – it's a "giallo" that reveals its modesty in its continuous rolling up itself, leaving perplexed an audience who's probably waiting for the usual murder series that, in truth, never materializes. The death are, in fact, occasional and too much predictable to surprise even the ingenuous – still for few time – audiences of the premiere. Dorigo ("Assassino Senza Volto", 1968) isn't really a relevant figure in the Italian cinema history, but a modest artisan that worked in all the genres in fashion, without finding a real summit in his meager filmography; and also with this title he shows clumsy in creating the tension and few prone to action, building a sequence of scenes with dialogs – also because of the much theatrical implant of the screenplay by Sergio Bazzini ("Il Seme Dell'Uomo", 1970 by Marco Ferreri) and Roberto Natale ("Operazione Paura", 1966 by Mario Bava). The fair job by Aldo Tonti and Tonti ("Il Castello Dei Morti Vivi", 1965 by Lorenzo Sabatini, Michael Reeves and Luciano Ricci) some good characterizations – notably the ones by Mary Arden ("Kriminal", 1966 by Umberto Lenzi), Giovanna Galletti ("Gli Amori Di Ercole", 1960 by Carlo Ludovico Bragaglia), Franco Pesce ("Orgasmo", 1969 by Umberto Lenzi), Gilberto Mazzi ("Macario Contro Zagomar", 1944 by Giorgio Ferroni)and Sergio Ciani ("Maciste Contro Gli Uomini Della Luna", 1964 by Giacomo Gentilomo) – confer the minimum of availability to make pleasant the screening, always if you have no great expectations. Produced by Walter Brandi, who's got famous for some historical horror movies of Cinecittà, like "L'Ultima Preda Del Vampiro", 1960 by Piero Regnoli.

Two fair-minded girls come to Lampedusa, a little island just down Sicily, where they decide to seduce a nice local guy. Putting their plan into practice, they force the young guy to confront with some mind troubles the luxurious acting of his mother has generated into him. As a result, he gets cured from his mind blocks. Well acted by the American Hiram Keller and two of the most beautiful and gifted actresses of the Italian popular cinema of the Seventies (Ida Galli - "La coda dello scorpione", 1971 by Sergio Martino - and Antonia Santilli - Fernando Di Leo's excellent "Il boss", 1973), Savino's picture is an easy-watching picture, amusing and nice though remaining a honest commercial production.

Untidy story involving a doctor, his chronically depressed and very rich wife, her nymphomaniac twin sister and his secretary. In the end, after a much too complex intertwining of murdering sub-plots, the two sisters die. Alberto Cavallone (class of 1938), director of the far more brilliant "Blue movie" (1978) seems unable to catch again his charge of extreme, and neither his bizarre poetic vein; hence the movie remains a worthless as much as inconsistent work, with absolutely no point of interest and deeply boring. Moreover, the wooden actors are unable to improve the director, unable to believe the characters they should play. A major disappointment considering the director's previous titles.

Token possession of an old "villa", a German ornithologist casually discovers some old tapes on which a psychologist has recorded the mysterious doings happened into those isolated walls. So he learns about a gloomy story of incestuous loves and trivial betrayals that will lead to a bloodbath orchestrated by an unexpected crazy character. A love drama disguised in a "giallo" movie that moves too much slowly; but has the regard to show a beautiful and skilled Erica Blank and an intense Peter Lee Lawrence. Romano Scavolini pays much attention in directing the cast and orchestrating the shot, but seems to forget completely the pacing, transforming an otherwise interesting story in a soporific black fable, which hardly someone can go thoroughly.

The jealousies and the envies between two stars of the hard-core cinema - Moana Pozzi and Milly D'Abbraccio - are dealt and resolved along an unending orgy. The usual and ridiculous pretext for an uninterrupted series of sexual acts, put together using a story without any logical sense and of minimum interest. The incompetent and boring direction skills of Mario Bianchi - who had made a really conspicuous number of such pornographic mediocrities - reach here one of his highest negative points, being able to make unbearable just sit there and stare at the instinctive and natural eroticism of the beautiful Moana. One would say just one word: delinquent.

Usual story (a businessman may risk the economic ruin if an associated of his own won't subscribe an important paper) which is really a pretext for seventy-four minutes of pornographic boredom, badly token, as if it was garbage into a provided container, by the Roman director Mario Bianchi (son of that artisan that was Roberto Montero). His flat and tired direction just makes grow the feeling of boredom that the inexpressive faces of the - usual known - actors plainly testify. You may spontaneously ask why someone should insist doing this kind of movies and if they might have returned some economical benefit to the investors; or if it's not just a simple excuse to make some buck without sweating.

Worried by the acting of his boyfriend, who doesn't intend have sex until their marriage, a young woman decides to have fun with the associate of her aunt and his husband. In the meantime, victim of the combined assault of two willing bimbos, also the guy loses his inhibition. At the end the couple can happily do it. All is well what ends well. Unless you're the viewer of that demoralizing, "no-budget" production. Alessandro Perrella directs like in a comatose state this gathered mess of crap, without any help coming from the bored actors and the usual porn starlets that filled the page of adult magazines in these years. The rough photography by Fox - then becoming director himself - and the stolen, horrible little music just cooperate to get the result more stinky. Tediousness guaranteed.

Two kids survive the massacre of their family, made by a group of vindicative Indians. The boy enlists in the confederated army, the girl is kidnapped by the Indians. Casually the two meet some years after; and he realizes the pointlessness of war and of the resentment for the American natives. One of the worst westerns ever. A quite invisible budget production. A story - conceived by the director and Bruno Vani (who later on will try to recycle himself in the porn industry ("Angelina superporno", 1982) - so much melodramatic and politically correct to become grotesquely ridiculous. A terrible photography by Gaetano Valle - who was a valid camera operator - who pretend to defend himself telling that the movie was "so much poor [...] just made to do something." The direction of Alessandro Santini is completely non-existent; at the point that the movie seems to grow up by itself, degenerating frame by frame. Elsio Mancuso's score is just pretty annoying. In the end the acting is more than embarrassing and the cast made by totally unknowns - with the exception of a couple of names like Marco Zuanelli ("Once Upon a Time in the West", 1968 by Sergio Leone) and the protagonist Jeff Cameron, stolen from the grade-Z pictures by Demofilo Fidani. It could have been a must-see for the bad movies connoisseurs, but the lack of action and the general ugliness of the plot induce more to sleeping and/or irritability, than to laughter, though unintentional. Frankly, it's truly difficult do something worse.

Arizona, a Bounty Killer, comes back home and discovers that the malevolent Styles has taken possession of his father's ranch, and dominates on the village. With the help of Duffy, the heroic gunslinger will vengeance himself and set the villagers free from the evil tyrant. Directed with solid craft by Juan Bosch ("Los buitres cavarán tu fosa", 1972), the movie has its plus sides on the music, by the quite always excellent Bruno Nicolai (who scored several westerns and "giallo" movies, as well as the Jesus Franco movies made for H. A. Tower), and the good work of cinematographer Giancarlo Ferrando ("Dallas", 1975 by Bosch too). A banal story, but done with intelligence, is pushed by the solid characterizations offered by a good cast - Indio González ("Gentleman Jo… uccidi", 1967 by Giorgio Stegani) above all – making this movie not yet a masterpiece, but a fairly good piece of entertainment.

Dallas and his buddy Kelly compete for a ranch - which hides a gold mine - with the brothers Wright; the greedy "Rompimano" and his henchmen; and the legitimate owner: Glenda Kelly. A really big jumble of trivialities and common places, stuffed with unfunny humor and an electronic score - you would know where do Marcello Giombini ("Return of Sabata", 1971 by Gianfranco Parolini) got inspiration from - that is completely out of place. Directed at a soporific pace by an artisan usually less distracted like Juan Bosh ("And the Crows Will Dig You Grave", 1972) the picture just falls flat. What a pity! In theory the couple Anthony Steffen ("Lone and Angry Man", 1965 by Mario Caiano)and Fernando Sancho ("A Pistol for Ringo", 1965 by Duccio Tessari) was excellent; but to work it would have needed quite other screenplay and, mostly, quite other bite.

Daniel O’Hara saves himself from the attack of a group of outlaws that kill everyone aboard the coach who he's traveling on, his father too. As he's come to a little village, Daniel finds out that the local sheriff and some notables are all in the gang who murdered his dad. One by one he kills all the villains, completing his vengeance. It's a really undemanding Western that you can see with not much yawns and indignant mumblings; thanks to the craft of a solid artisan like Rafael Romero Marchent. Peter Lee Lawrence isn't exactly a monster of acting, but still manages to do his roles with dignity and professionalism. At the end it scores higher than many euro western of the same period.

Scott infiltrates in the cove of the outlaw El Condor, who's spreading fear through the Mojave region, attacking the convoys of gold searchers reaching toward California. With the Help of Maya and some poor Mexicans, oppressed by the bandit, Scott will be able to call for the cavalry intervention and defeat the whole band. Umpteenth western with no budget and a story which try to gain some life, bringing to the usual and boring commonplaces of the genre, the ones of the crime thriller. Bergonzelli (Jim il primo, 1964) is able in someways to come up with a dignified movie in spite of his extremely poor aspect. Which doesn't really mean it scored the same in absolute terms. The unknown star, monolithic and monotonous, will disappear from sight; but the attendances of a solid character actor like George Wang (Buon funerale, amigos!... Paga Sartana, 1971 by Giuliano Carnimeo) in the antagonist role, and a couple of actresses – Marisa Solinas (Blindman, 1971 by Ferdinando Baldi) e Lucretia Love (Vaya con dios gringo, 1966 by Eduardo Mulargia) – with good professionalism, prevent the shipwreck of the whole project.

Directed by the genre expert Giorgio Grand, this movie doesn't really offer quite anything erotic nor in its banal narration - Lilli Carati is a model that offering her sex to all the male cast can get her way to success - neither in its classically mediocre - at least for the Italian pornographic cinema - staging. It's embarrassing how easily Lilli Carati could lower to the general level of slovenliness of such kind of productions in spite of having taken part to some fair movie just a few years before. People would better spend his time looking for some classical French productions, and not wasting eight-two minutes with low-grade sex scenes filled with worthless dialogs and terrible characterizations.

Johnny West is a half-blood adventurer returning to his native town. There he's firstly put to jail; then he end giving a hand to the sheriff in arresting a terrible band of outlaws. Before making the farcical and rowdy triptych about Indio Black and Sabata, Gianfranco Parolini directed this western with a professional cast – in which André Bollet (then in "I Fantastici Tre Supermen", 1967 always by Parolini), the Hungarian Barta Barri ("El karate, el Colt y el impostor" / "Là Dove Non Batte il Sole", 1974 by Antonio Margheriti) and Bob Felton excel in evident comical roles – that suffers of an evident immobility – and in that sense the woody Mimmo Palmara ("…e lo Chiamarono Spirito Santo", 1971 by Roberto Mauri) is perfect – and a clearer budgetary poverty – Robert De Nesle and his Comptoir not for nothing produced some films of the Spanish Jess Franco – livening up a little just in the humorous (and not that memorable for sure) scenes.

Really nothing to say about this dreary windmill of boring pornographic situations. Two pairs are blackmailed by a frigid rich woman to continually copulate in an endless series of partners changing. Final orgy in which participate also a couple friend and the lover of the woman. There is also a "coprophile" scene (taken from who-knows what film); but the mediocrity of the realization (in spite of the presence of Jean Rollin - author of well-received cult erotic-vampires movies - and the expert Pierre Reinhard - he did direct a whole bunch of porn movies) rules that much to inflict just bore and annoyance. So be warned: if you are looking for some sexual entertainment you won't find it here for sure!

Incredible mess co produced between Italy and Hong Kong (where the story looked a lot more serious). Two Chinese brothers and the wife of one of them run from China to USA to avoid the vengeful wrath of their gram pa. There, instead, they have to fight a sordid band of outlaws, leaded by another Chinese and a blond white man (a truly boiled Berger, who looks ready to get into the Jess Franco's movies he'll be in). Because of their superior kung fu skills the 3 con defeat any adversary and finally find the peace they've been looking for. Filled with abysmal gags and definitively sunk by the inappropriate financial budget, neither the rigidity of an inexpressive cast, nor an invisible direction can save this from the disaster. The music stolen from other movies and thrown in, more or less, casually it's the definitive gravestone for this unguessable "trash" picture that even Troma would have been careful to distribute.

A day in the life of a feminine college, filled with the usual perversions that warm the hearts of the pupils, their parents and the school workers. Humorously erotic and full of good ideas, the movies is directed by Francis Leroi (who later went on to helm a "soft" Emanuelle series) with a kindly libertine mood that makes really pleasurable its vision. Leroi create, with its bouncing editorial style, a complex picture that gives life-like reality to his brilliantly conceived screenplay; and with the help of a good cast, containing some true beautiful porn actresses (Dominique Saint-Clair; Julia Perrin), he just made one of the most interesting porn movies coming from the famed French distribution label Alpha-France.

Past and present (and also night and day, sadly) get really confused when a witch is reborn by a sect of black magic fanatic (really ridiculously dressed and made up). Young girls get naked, (maybe) killed, used to give new life to Isabel. Perhaps they die too, but it's not too clear... What is clear is the absurd and incoherent storyline Polselli did create to show us some tits and (not that much) gore. Anyway: the actors are really bad and the sets couldn't look much poor. Luckily, there is an imaginative photography by Ugo Brunelli (who later would be working on another great title of the grade-Z Italian cinema: The Beast in Heat, 1977 by Leopoldo Savona). If you're fans of the trash you'll enjoy this one... otherwise be warned