FUNHOUSE! The cyberzine of degenerate pop culture

 

FUNHOUSE!

The cyberzine of degenerate pop culture

vol. 1 - no. 3;  December 29, 1993

Released on Barbara Steele's 56th birthday

editor: Jeff Dove (jeffdove@well.sf.ca.us)

This issue is dedicated to Frank Zappa.  He fought for your freedom whether

you know it or not.

<Note: written on a Macintosh text editor, line feeds are on.  Display in

 nine point monaco font.>

FUNHOUSE! is dedicated to whatever happens to be on my mind at the time

that I'm writing.  The focus will tend to be on those aspects of our

fun filled world which aren't given the attention of the bland traditional

media, or which have been woefully misinterpreted or misdiagnosed by the

same.  FUNHOUSE! is basically a happy place, and thus the only real

criteria I will try to meet is to refrain from rants, personal attacks,

and flames - and thus FUNHOUSE! is an apolitical place.  Offbeat films,

music, literature, and experiences are largely covered, with the one

stipulation being that articles are attempted to be detailed and well

documented, although this is no guarantee of completeness or correctness,

so that the interested reader may further pursue something which may spark

her interest.  Correspondence and contributions are thus encouraged, and

any letters will by printed in future issues.  Please send a short message

to the above address, and arrangements will be made for the submission of

larger items.  The only other item is that FUNHOUSE! is Free-Free-

Freeware!  PLEASE copy and distribute as you wish, however please do not

alter any text.  I will be happy to try to clarify anything contained

herein, and to provide additional information if I can, so don't hesitate

to contact me.

Table of Contents:

* Letters, Commentary, and Other Stuff You'll Probably Skip Over

* Three Italian Masters: Mario Bava, Sergio Leone, and Dario Argento

  Defy Hollywood Conventions.  The Critics Balk!  Part 1 - Bava

* A Parliafunkadelicment Thang - FUNHOUSE! Evaluates the Albums of

  Funkadelic

* The Original KISS Rate Their Own Records - Read What the World's

  Richest Cartoon Characters Think of Themselves

* REVIEWS - Zines, Books, Records, and Live Shows

Letters, Commentary, and Other Stuff...

---------------------------------------

Whew, it's been a long time since number two!  Numbers three and four will

thus come out rather close together and will serve as a double issue.  Our

Italian Masters article begins here with King Mario Bava, and part two next

time will pick it up with Dario Argento.  The review section is likewise

split, with printed matter being covered now and recorded materials being

the dominant items the next time around.

First off a big thanks to Jon Labovitz and his e-zine list,
and Jason Snell

at InterText for the publicity they've given this cyberzine.  Has anyone

caught the show "Drive-In Reviews" on Comedy Central?  (It airs Sundays at

midnight here on the west coast.)  Two knuckle heads watch slasher and gore

flicks while commenting sarcastically over them MST3K style.  One show I saw

had a "family" theme in which a crazed member tortured and hacked up the

others.  While knives and hatchets were being buried into bodies and guts

and blood were spilling, what appeared to be the word "shit" was bleeped

out.  Censorship works in weird ways.  As this show is a product of the need

to fill air time at the present number of channels, I can't wait for what

will occupy space in the expanded future.  Last issue we picked on Mr. Paul

McCartney in this forum for his fascist tactics, and in this issue the

target is a far more obvious villain of the corporate rock world - MTV.  I

know those wannabe hipsters are an easy target, but something I came across

concerning them, Nirvana, and the 1993 MTV Video Music Awards deserves

comment.  (In "The Dark Side of Innocence: Nirvana and the Rise of the

Seattle Sound" by Gillian G. Gaar in Goldmine, Vol. 19, No. 25, Issue 349,

Dec. 10, 1993 - a pretty good overview of the band's career and recording

history.  Fans are recommended to check it out.)  It is reported that the MTV

suits wanted Nirvana to perform the song "Lithium" live on the broadcast,

while the band wanted to do "Rape Me".  When told it had to be "Lithium" they

were set to walk out, until being informed that if they didn't stay and do

the desired performance that not only would Nirvana never again be played

on MTV, but any bands on their record label (DGC) and with their management

company (Gold Mountain) might also have trouble finding a place on the channel.

Nirvana gave in and coercion is seen to still work.  Mojo Nixon had it right

about Music Television until he $old out to them.  Guns and Roses should

also note that the inclusion of a Charly Manson composition unlisted on the

end of their Spaghetti Incident album, generating controversy (and record

sales) for themselves, is not without precedent.  Red Cross (now Redd Kross

- more in a future FUNHOUSE!) included Manson's "Cease to Exist" unlisted at

the end of their 1982 Born Innocent record.  You can hear The Beach Boys

perform this one, if you care to, under the title "Never Learn Not To Love"

where the words were altered to "cease to resist".  Look for the hard copy

Clash / Davie Allen and the Arrows complete and illustrated double

discography in 1994 from FUNHOUSE! publications.  Clash fans with knowledge

of oddities, promotional items, and uncommon picture sleeves are encouraged

to contact me with your information about them at the email address above.

I could also use a copy of the soundtrack album to the film KILLERS THREE.

Credit will be given for any contributions in the finished work.  Look for

periodic postings of the Clash discography that I have as it grows in the

newsgroups alt.music.punk, alt.music.alternative, alt.music.rock-and-roll,

and alt.music.marketplace.

How much credibility does the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame have when they

overlook The Velvet Underground and The Mothers of Invention and induct The

Grateful Dead?

Don't ever go to see a band where the cost of admission exceeds the cost of

their latest record (unless it's The Ramones).

***********************************

I really enjoyed reading Funhouse... Here's a spelling tip (which I send

'cuz it drove me nuts to see it repeated):  "allot" means to 'assign a share

or portion', while "a lot" (two words!) means 'a large amount'.

Eli Messinger

tekbspa!ebm@uunet.uu.net

***********************************

I've enjoyed your FUNHOUSE! muchly and have distributed it to a couple of

pop-culture fans.  I found great writing and amazing research.

May I offer a suggestion?  Your apostrophes need cleaning up.

The most common problem I spotted was the confusion between the "it's"

contraction and the "its" posessive.  It's useful to remember that "it's"

means "it is".

Some other occasional problems I spotted:

1> to the source.  Russ' style is one of the most uniquely

Singular nouns, even proper names, always almost take "'s" as their

posessive.  See Chicago Manual of Style for exceptions.

2> as I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE or PINK FLAMINGO'S, when they tell you

These are wrong unless the movie is about something that belongs

to a pink flamingo.

[I realize this is wrong - I just missed it. -JD]

3> run posing as a cop.  Alaina's got nothing but insults

As a contraction this is OK, but you should be aware that it resolves to

"Alaina has got nothing ... ", which is gramatically "casual" or else

"Alaina is got nothing ..."

4> come-on's, she refuses to provide his alibi.  Clint is picked

5> sound allot like some of the contemporary Ziggy LP's.  A good intro

6> Released on the day of George Clinton's 53'rd birthday.

7> Also look for Russ' cameo as the video store clerk in the late-80's

Abbreviations may use apostrophe in a plural if it avoids the confusion of

simply ending with "s". Numbers shouldn't need to do so.

So "come-on's" is probably OK because the idiom is "come-on", and "come-ons"

would look unfamiliar and thus not work. But, for example, you'd get into

trouble with "hard-on's", right? What does it mean?

And "Ziggy LP's" is still OK because there was a time when people might have

wondered what was an "LPs" (as with TVs, VCRs, MUXs, etc.) and so the "LP's"

form has become sort of traditional.

The "late-80's" is probably not OK.  To justify it, you'd have to claim that

it prevents reader from thinking, for example, that you're talking about a

soviet missle no longer in production (e.g., "The late 80s was planned for

submarine use...").

And "53'rd" is just plain bad befuddlement.  There is no "s" in sight to get

confused over!  The structures, "1st", "2nd", ... "87th" ... are quite

traditional and accepted.

8> out on tape was the edited version, however Something Weird's is

Running uncontrolled here, I think. This resolves to "Something Weird is is

the ..."

============================================================================

The apostrophe has become a "thing" with me.  I've been seeing more and more

of them in places they shouldn't be. Thanks for your patience if you've read

this far.

============================================================================

Thanks again for your 'zine.

George Klima 

klima@vnet.ibm.com

***********************************

Although I didn't have time to read the whole of both of them, I did

get my interest piqued in Russ Meyer.  Your Lou Reed reviews were excellent

although I beg to differ with your dismissal of "Magic and Loss".  I felt

that it was one of Lou's most compelling works overall.  There isn't much

music out there with that much soul and feel.

 

Thanks for the review of Neil Young because I'll be seeing him on the 25th

w/ Blind Melon and Dinosaur Jr. (and of course the most excellent MGs).

FUNHOUSE! is the zine I'd like Trigger Cut to become if I had more time.

Mike Jordan

goo@pwrtools.wariat.org 

[call up Mike at The Last Stand BBS at 216-228-0462]

***********************************

I've very much enjoyed reading both issues of Funhouse!, especially the

articles on Meyer and the biker movies.  Both are topics of particular

interest for me (a note: though I find most of Meyer enormously interesting

from a historical and technical viewpoint, the only one of his movies that I

can say I'm a genuine fan of is "Faster, Pussycat!", which is a _wonderful_

work. [A couple of weekends ago, I rented Mikel's "The Astro-Zombies" and

"The Doll Squad", just to see Tura Satana again...)

I ran across a fairly serious (though quite funny) goof in your listing of

"Additional biker genre titles":

"Where Angels Go... Trouble Follows!" (1968) is, ahem, not really a biker

movie, though it would be entertaining to remake it within that genre.  It's

a sequel to the 1966 "The Trouble With Angels" (starring Ida Lupino,

Rosalind Russell, Hayley Mills, etc.).  Both are about (very) mildly comic

goings-on at a convent school: the girls driving mother superior Russell to

distraction with their wacky adolescent excesses.  The sequel stars Russell,

Stella Stevens, don't think Hayley is in it, with guest shots by Milton

Berle, Van Johnson. I saw it once on a late-night movie show: I recall that

the girls go on some kind of road trip (in a bus, not on bikes).  There's a

lot of singing (including a zippy title song, the chorus of which is oft

repeated as a bridge between the episodic turns in the plot), and Stevens

plays a young, hip nun who's confused about her commitment to the Church.

Terry

tharpold@mail.sas.upenn.edu

[whoops! -JD]

***********************************

I like the FUNHOUSE! but try to be sensitive to your women readers, most of

whom are rather disgusted by pornography, and the exploitation of women,

strong characters or not.  We like to be thought of a more than a pair of

mammary glands.  _Very_ itchy subject. If he picked his actresses on the

basis of their breasts, then he was interested in his hormones and in money,

not art, and definitely not in a positive portrayal of women.  I'm not

suggesting censorship on your part, but perhaps a little consideration.

  

Thanks,

Sarah Aist

sa930211mcis@messiah.edu

***********************************

Well thank you for causing me to miss class.  OK that's mis-directed blame,

it is my fault, but the Meyer piece had me glued in place... Funhouse is my

favorite pinball game. "Go get yourself a hot dog"

just another bloodthirsty spectator,

julie atomic

shapiroj@ucsu.colorado.edu

[julie publishes the wonderfully distasteful Seduction of the Innocent (which

is much more interesting than the 1950's censorship tirade of the same name)

and adds...]

  I've been enjoying the J. Kevorkian soap opera and am considering putting

  together a sticker pack dedicated to the man.  (I've been combating

  insomnia at Kinkos creating "Atomic Stickers" with themes like Women In

  Prison, Woody Allen, Violent Crime Statistics, The College Scene (1967),

  Classic Sitcoms, etc...)

[for SOTI or these other fine products, "send a buck or two to cover

shipping costs" to Julie Atomic/2010 19th st./Boulder, CO/80302.  When in SF

you can play Funhouse pinball at The 500 Club on Guerrero and 17th st. -JD]

***********************************

I noticed in your Boxoffice Int'l (BI) roundup that the Novak-sponsored

films of the 70s were not discussed in much detail. I assumed you simply

hadn't gotten to them yet and would review them soon. As an aside, I've seen

a few of them in their pre-Something Weird versions and so here come some

unsolicited ramblings about them. . . First, I seem to recall that the BI

films were always kind of "knocking around" theaters, and even the titles

from the 60s would pop up unexpectedly years later to round out the lower

half of a "fleahouse" double-bill. For example, I say "The Toy Box" on the

bottom of a triple-bill at the now-defunct Airport Drive-in in Oakland (CA)

in 1977. "Axe" (which is now out on video under a number of monikers) was at

the Concord Drive-In (Concord, NH, where I moved to in 1981) as late as

1982.

The Toy Box (1971) <SW> -- Reminded me of those Doris Wishman films, where

the words didn't quite match the movements made by the mouths, and there's

no story. My memory is hazy, but it's mostly a softcore porn flick with a

subplot involving aliens that eat people's brains. A lot of people sitting

around on couches; the only jolt in the film is a cutaway to a decapitated

corpse -- sitting on a couch, of course -- my notes say that it looked like

the actress pulled her sweater up and leaned her head back over the side of

the couch to get the shot.

I Drink Your Blood (1971) <SW> -- Is this the David E. Durston film? If so,

Jerry Gross' Cinemation was the distributor and it played nationally on a

double-bill with "I Eat Your Skin" (aka "Zombies," another transplant from

the 60s).

The Mad Butcher (1972) -- This one, if it's the one I'm thinking of -- a

German-made version of "Sweeney Todd," with Victor Buono -- is in one of

those Continental Video packages that sit gathering dust on many video store

shelves. I recall that Buono is good, but that it's an Edgar Wallace-type

murder mystery with slasher overtones.

Frankenstein's Castle of Freaks (1973) -- An embarrassment for Rossano

Brazzi, Michael Dunn. The video version I saw was stickered PG but there's a

lot of skin in this opus.

Caged Virgins aka Dungeon of Terror (1971) -- Jean Rollin? If not, I think

this was a French import. (Again, I'm not close to my handy ref books)

[aka Requiem pour un Vampire aka Vierges et Vampires aka Sex Vampires aka

Requiem for a Vampire aka Virgins and Vampires aka The Virgins and the

Vampires aka The Crazed Vampire.  Yes it is from Jean Rollin - JD]

Behind Locked Doors aka Two Girls for a Madman aka Anybody, Anyway (1975) --

This one's part of a Continental Video double-bill. Two young women go to a

party, meet up with crazy hillbilly types, are kidnapped and humiliated

before they get away.

The Rattlers (1976) -- I remember seeing this one at a hardtop in the 70s,

PG-rated horror thingie patterned after Willard and Stanley, et. al.

The Child aka Hide and Go Kill (1976) -- Fred Freidel's sleazy little gem

from, I believe, the Carolinas. I don't have my reference books handy, but I

believe this film kind of tosses its underdeveloped story to the wind in the

last ten minutes and becomes a rather good Night of the Living Dead rip-off.

[Jeff later informed me that he had confused The Child with Friedel's

The Axe aka Lisa aka California Axe Massacre (1977) -JD]

 

Hitch Hike to Hell (1978) -- With the Professor, from Gilligan's Island!

Just some quick notes. I would like to find a video store like to one you

mentioned in a news message -- the one in San Francisco. I've been all over

the Boston area and there aren't too many that would carry these

obscurities.

*note: update list of BO titles available from SW!

Jeff Frentzen

jfrentzen@pcweek.ziff.com

Updated list of titles available from Something Weird:

Indian Raid, Indian Made (1969) *

The Pigkeepers Daughter (1970) 

Country Hooker (1970) *

Teenage Bride (1970) *

Tobacco Roody (1970)

Country Cuzzins (1971)

Midnight Plowboy (1971) *

Below the Belt (1971) 

Southern Comfort (1971) *

Sassy Sue (1972) *

* Not listed in previous filmography

Additions to the filmography, not now on video from Something Weird:

Massage Parlor Wife

Wham Bam Thank You Spaceman

Notorious Concubines

***********************************

I retrieved both of the FUNHOUSE! issues from the FTP site.  Lot's of

interesting reading, I especially liked the article on Russ Meyer.  Since

you seem to be somewhat of an expert on the topic of Mr. Meyer, I'll have to

ask you a question.  I borrowed CHERRY, HARRY, AND RAQUEL from a friend some

years ago, and I seem to remember that somewhere on the video box it said

something about "THE MEGAVIXENS".  Like some kind of subtitle.  You don't

mention any alias for CH&R in your filmography but I'm positive I didn't

dream this up with THE MEGAVIXENS thing.

Marten Sahlen

etxsahm@eua.ericsson.se

[CH&R was released in the UK theatrically under the title THREE WAYS TO

LOVE.  MEGAVIXENS was a title that UP! was released under in France.

Marten later confirmed that UP! was indeed the film that he was thinking

of. - JD]

***********************************

Three Italian Masters: Mario Bava, Sergio Leone, and Dario Argento Defy

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hollywood Conventions.  The Critics Balk!  Part 1 - Bava

--------------------------------------------------------

Mario Bava, Sergio Leone and Dario Argento are auteurs in areas of film

which many "cinemaphiles" of the type who probably write for your local

paper look down their noses at.  These directors primarily focused their

efforts in the areas of horror, thriller, western, science fiction, and

crime dramas, however each employed a style which broke the paradigm that

had been established by the traditional Hollywood approach in the execution

of these genres.  Not only did the Italians challenge the accepted formats

for the films which they made, but they also used expectations of such

formats to their advantage in bringing to their audiences feelings of

tension, terror, anxiety, insight, or even humor.  The Hollywood style of

continuity editing was not only ignored, but the editing and camerawork

employed by these directors was designed to in some ways have opposite

effects.  The Hollywood theory says that the editing shouldn't be noticed,

that there should be a seamless flow from shot to shot and from one scene to

the next.  These filmmakers use the camera intrusively.  It may linger on

objects, points of view may vary without warning, or it may travel to places

that the eye of a human observer couldn't, or wouldn't, see.  The

messages in the films are often driven by some underlying psychology, and

the methodologies employed in the filmmaking process serve to emphasize

these.  Not only are traditional ideas pertaining to plot, characters, and

notions of good and bad toyed with, but styles of presenting a story which

had been refined through decades of output from American studios were also

altered.  The most noticeable example of this is in the reliance on elements

other than pure narrative to carry the films.  Stories aren't necessarily

presented in the traditional manner, that being: 1) characters are

introduced and defined, 2) a dilemma is presented, and 3) that dilemma is

resolved at the film's end.  Linearity of time is sometimes not adhered to.

In addition to the actions of the camera, the sound and art direction are

also relied upon to further a story, or even just an emotion, to a much

greater extent than in more standard movies.  The use of a musical score can

be particularly striking, and serve as an important element in the

presentation.  This movement away from the norms of commercial studio

filmmaking had of course been utilized by many prior directors.  Europeans

such as Goddard and Bergman, and even American Orson Welles, are examples of

those who broke convention, but these and other "art film" directors

applied their efforts to dramas.  What makes Bava, Leone, and Argento

enticing is not only the quality of their work, but that they were pioneers

in applying the above mentioned techniques to genre films.  The success which

they achieved also led them to be quite influential, as each spurred on many

imitators who produced works of varying degrees of quality.  Another element

which they have in common is that each of the three was met with a large

amount, at least initially, of hostile critical reaction from American

reviewers.  Some of this undoubtedly arose from the sheer fact that the

genres in which they worked were automatically looked at as inferior, but

some of it must also arise from these reviewers trying to "read" the films

as if they were the product of the Hollywood style.  Many seemed confused in

their analysis.  There is no doubt that these films can be enjoyed on a

purely visceral level, and while that approach would shortchange the

observer, it undoubtedly contributed to some of the success that they did

enjoy, especially in the case of Leone in America.

The influence of the three directors on others was mentioned above, but the

influence of the two older men, Bava and Leone, on Argento should not be

overlooked.  Indeed much of Argento's work can be observed to be a synthesis

of techniques pioneered by the other two, with a good deal of Poe and German

Edgar Wallace films thrown in as well.  Leone directed only eight films

himself, and produced a ninth while being heavily involved in it's creation.

Six of these films, those for which he was most well known, represent the

most classic examples of the "spaghetti western".  It was the films of

Leone, and the character of "The Man with No Name" in some of these films,

which helped catapult Clint Eastwood into stardom.  A couple of epics early

in his career and a gangster saga at the end frame his more famous efforts.

Bava is most well known by those who are aware of him as a creator of horror

films.  He did in fact have a great influence in ushering in "The Golden Age

of Italian Horror Cinema", which loosely ran from the late fifties through

the early seventies.  His body of work is actually quite varied, with

efforts in the areas of science fiction, giallo (Italian styled murder

mysteries), a Hercules adventure, and even comic tinged fantasy and spy

films.  Argento, the only living and currently active member of the troika,

has been more consistent in theme with his films.  He is often times seen as

a horror director, but in fact almost all of his projects have been giallos.

Argento is the master of this area of filmmaking, but he has also ventured

into the realm of horror (twice as director but frequently as producer) and

his giallos sometimes incorporate supernatural elements.  He once strayed

from fright films entirely with a satirical political period piece early

in his career.

part I - Bava:

Mario Bava made the jump from prolific cinematographer to prolific director

midway through his career.  Between the years 1938 and 1962 he lensed at

least 27 Italian made films.  There were early directorial efforts, but

these consisted entirely of shorts shot on film no larger 16mm.  However by

the mid-fifties Bava was getting work as an uncredited assistant on several

projects, including Pietro Francisci's LA FATICHE DE ERCOLE (aka HERCULES,

1957) and ERCOLE E LA REGINA LIDIA (aka HERCULES UNCHAINED, 1960), and was

credited on Henry Levin's THE WONDERS OF ALADDIN (1961).  The event which

would serve as his introduction into the world of fantastic film was his

work on what is considered to be the first in a new wave of Italian horror

productions, Riccardo Freda's I VAMPIRI (1957, released as THE DEVIL'S

COMMANDMENT in edited form in the US).  This film was the start of a cascade

of works which generally featured eerie tales of torture and evil, often

dealt with dark forces, and were mostly set in baroque or gothic

surroundings.  Many of the techniques familiar from the classic Universal

films were incorporated, but they were also updated with a flair for the

excess that often times occurs in Italian cinema.  Dark lighting, musty

castles, fog, and graveyards abound.  I VAMPRIRI was scheduled for a 12 day

shoot with Freda directing and Bava behind the camera.  After 10 days Freda

walked off the project and Bava stepped in to finish, supposedly filming

greater than half of it in the remaining two days.  The film has a 1930's

feel to it, with short and sharply edited scenes backed by an old style organ

score.  The Bava look, which would become very recognizable in the future,

shows through in many places however, especially in the areas of set design

and the use of the camera to convey a message through the visuals

surrounding the action.  The story is good, telling of a 100+ year old

Duchess who rejuvenates herself into the young Gieselle through blood

transfusions from selected victims.  She is aided by a mad scientist

relative.  Gianna-Maria Canale plays the dual role of young woman/old woman

which foreshadows the role Barbara Steele will play in BLACK SUNDAY.  The

film's strong points are its visuals, and with both Freda (sculpting) and

Bava (painting) having artistic training, their approach is just as much to

create something stunning to look at as to tell a story.  The Duchess' manor

has a hidden laboratory annex and a secret passageway to a crypt (also

foreshadowing BLACK SUNDAY), all of which allow for intricate set design.

Bava's fluid camera is prominent, and is especially so in scenes in which a

victim awakes in the lab and escapes to the tomb, and in the finale where

the police comb the castle premises.  The American version, which is much

more likely to be seen these days, has several extra scenes shot in the

States which are easy to spot by anyone familiar with Bava's work, including

the opening abduction.  These were inserted to make the film more "adult"

and they feature scantily clad victims being apprehended.  A nudie version

was even put out under the title LUST OF THE VAMPIRE, which features an

insert of "Grandpa" Al Lewis standing in for a European actor and pulling a

woman's top off.  I VAMPIRI is a watershed film much the way that Russ

Meyer's THE IMMORAL MR. TEAS (1959) and Roger Corman's THE WILD ANGELS

(1966) were, in that it served as an inspiration for a slew of imitators,

and thus instigated a complete subgenre.

Several more projects as cinematographer followed, including additional

uncredited second unit direction with Jacques Tourneur on LA BATTAGLIA DI

MARATONA (THE GIANT OF MARATHON, 1959).  This was another project which was

saved by Bava, who used his frugal abilities to finish it.  He also again

teamed up with director Freda on a horror project.  In this film, CALTIKI,

THE IMMORTAL MONSTER (1959) a situation similar to that with I VAMPIRI

occurred in which Freda quit the project midway through and Bava took over

the director's role.  Caltiki is an angry Mexican god who directs his wrath

toward some snoopy scientists who are desecrating his temple.  The monster

is a rolling mass of tissue that resembles The Blob.  The producers felt

that Italian names in the credits of previous films had diminished their box

office draw, even domestically, and thus the names were anglicized.  Freda

became "Robert Hampton" and Bava was "John Foam".  CALTIKI was sold in Italy

as a US production.  Bava would take on pseudonyms on several projects in

the future, but this was usually the result of his hiding his real name when

working in different genres, or was due to his displeasure with the final

editing of the film.

Producers took notice of Bava's skill in saving troubled projects on budget,

and thus Nello Santi of Galatea Films offered to back any project that he

wished to direct.  Bava settled on the horror genre and produced one of the

finest examples of that form ever made, LA MASCHERA DEL DEMONIO (BLACK

SUNDAY, 1960).  He also served as co-writer and co-cinematographer, and

designed the special effects.  Barbara Steele, who would develop a career in

Euro-horror in the sixties in the wake of this movie, was selected for the

lead based solely on her appearance .  She had only had a few minor roles in

non thriller's in her native England up to that time.  (See Appendix:

Barbara Steele filmography).  Here she plays both the part of the evil witch

Asa, and of Katia the innocent daughter of the local lord.  Steele would

also play double roles in the Italian gothic horror pictures AMANTI

D'OLTRETOMBA (aka NIGHTMARE CASTLE, 1965, dir: Mario Caiano) and UN ANGELO

PER SATANA (aka AN ANGEL FOR SATAN, 1966, dir: Camillo Mastrocinque).  Asa

is "killed" during the film's intro, along with her demon lover Dominici, by

having the masks of the film's title driven onto their faces.  These masks

contain large, sharp spikes on their inner sides, and the hammering of them

onto the faces is a shocking beginning.  Before death Asa places a curse on

her family as it is her brother who is disposing of her.  The remainder of

the story takes place in 1830, 200 years later to the day.  It is a day in

which historically the dead rise to seek retribution on the living, and it

is then which the witch attempts to fulfill her curse.  Katia bares a

striking resemblance to her ancestor, whose portrait hangs on the wall of

her home.  When the Katia character is first encountered she emerges through

the misty graveyard robed in black and holding large black dogs on a leash.

The visual suggestion of evil when being introduced to the story's heroine

is but one bit of trickery encountered.  100 years ago exactly another

family member, who also resembled Asa, met an early demise.  Katia's father

and brother are aware of the curse, and that it is one in which a descendant

of Asa is given the gift of her striking beauty but is to be punished for

this gift with an untimely death.  The circumstances around Asa's revival

this time are a pair of skeptical doctors who happen across her grave after

breaking down on their way to a professional conference.  When the

analytical non believers stumble through the graveyard and onto the tomb of

the witch, they remove a cross fixed over her head which is designed to keep

her contained.  When the spiked mask is pulled off of the witch's face a

hole filled skull swarming with spiders is revealed, and when the senior

doctor is bitten on the finger by a bat, he drips blood onto the body and

the resurrection is set in place.  Asa calls to her lover to rise from his

grave, and he pulls his mask from his head in one of the best sequences.  He

then aids her revival by capturing locals and bringing his victims to Asa so

that she can consume their blood as a means to her revival (shades of I

VAMPIRI).  She is shown to gradually reconstitute, and at one point is

depicted with skin that has returned, but with the spike holes remaining, in

her face.  As the victims mount, young doctor Andrej takes an interest in

Katia, and with the aid of the village priest attempts to squelch the demon

before Katia is destroyed by Asa as the ultimate victim in her revival.

Steele is assigned the dual role not only to make use of her striking

features, and as an element of the narrative, but also to emphasize the

dialectical image of the female in society.  There is a struggle between the

whore like role of Asa, who has an insatiable appetite for men demonstrated

on screen by her need for their blood, and the virginal Katia who is

virtuous and in danger of violation.  Andrej desires Katia, who diverts him,

and Katia is herself desired by Asa for the witch's own evil purpose.  He is

forced to confront both women at the end, as when Asa has regained her human

form she places an unconscious Katia in her coffin and encourages the young

man to kill "the witch".  The crucifix hanging from the real Katia's neck

identifies her, and Andrej and the priest destroy and burn the witch to

hopefully kill her spirit forever.  Themes of inter familial violence occur,

and will reoccur in Bava's work.  An uneasy incestuous suggestion happens in

this story when the zombified father attempts to suck out the blood of his

daughter, only to be thwarted by Dominici, as Katia is to be saved for Asa.

Psychological subtexts like this, intended to induce an extra disturbance in

the audience, would become a Bava hallmark.  This is also one of Bava's most

dense films in terms of the images on screen.  A fog filled graveyard with

an eerie crypt and a vast medieval castle complete with secret passages and

trap doors provide a fine framework for the artist in Bava to present the

ocular imagery, that he saw as a vital part of cinema, with a free hand.  As

director he also is given free reign with the motion of the camera, and his

liberal use of tracks and zooms draw out images which in many ways help to

make this a sort of moving painting.  AIP picked it up for US distribution

and gave it the BLACK SUNDAY title.  They also made a few edits of the more

graphic images and replaced the score with one by ubiquitous American film

composer Les Baxter, actions which detract from the viewing experience.

Bava said prior to working on this film that he didn't wish to direct as he

didn't feel that he had the total vision necessary for creating a story on

that level.  Watching BLACK SUNDAY shows this belief to be false.

While Bava is best known as the creator of horror and giallo style crime

thrillers, he actually was active in a wide range of film genres.  Based on

his previous experience with the Francisci HERCULES films, he was hired to

direct an installment in the then popular Hercules series.  His ERCOLE AL

CENTRO DELLA TERRA (aka HERCULES IN THE HAUNTED WORLD, 1961) also gave him

his first opportunity at directing a color feature on his own.  It has been

stated already that Bava's use of art direction and camera movements are

central elements to his style, but arguably the most important element would

come to be color composition, particularly with regards to lighting.  In

HAUNTED the techniques which would appear over and over again are presented

for the first time.  The complexity and subtleness that would be present in

the art direction of later films isn't as developed in HAUNTED with it's

minimal budget, but the concept is very apparent.  Bava essentially made a

horror movie within the pretense of a sword and sandal epic.  Christopher

Lee stars as the evil Lychos, a servant of the dark God Pluto.  He captures

Hercules' lover Dianara and plans to rule over the city that she should be

queen of by consuming her blood and keeping that city in eternal darkness.

Hercules learns from the animated oracle Medea that he and pal Thesius must

travel to Hades itself in order to retrieve the Rock of Light to save

Dianara and her people.  The darkness of Hell, Lychos' evil lair, and the

Kingdom of Darkness where the Hesperides live, are all created convincingly.

Deep reds and misty layers of fog on the sea to Hell, the carefully placed

green, red, and blue lights in the Hesperides' land, and the bubbling lava

pits of the underworld all create a spooky atmosphere of the sort that would

be perfected in the depiction of an alien planet's terrain in PLANET OF THE

VAMPIRES.  A rampaging stone creature, bleeding vines carrying the souls of

damned men, and ghouls crawling from their coffins and out of the ground to

battle Hercules provide some of the horrific elements.  Extended fights are

kept to a minimum, and the eerie plot contributes to this film being

commonly referred to as one of two Hercules films, along with the original

Steve Reeves entry, that is worth watching today.  It was released in the

US by the Woolner Brothers, who shortened it a bit by cropping some scenes

at the beginning and the end.   GLI INVASORI (aka ERIK THE CONQUEROR, 1961)

was made at the behest of Galatea head Nello Santi in an attempt to jump

onto a trend of Viking pictures that were popular in Italy at the time.  It

stars Cameron Mitchell as a Viking child abandoned after his people's defeat

at the hands of the English in the 10th century.  Queen Alice of Britain

adopts the boy and raises him as Erik, Duke of Helfort.  His brother Iron

becomes leader of the Vikings, and after the English Queen is betrayed by

her top aide Gunnar, the Vikings have control over her land.  When Erik

returns home to reclaim England, his must do battle with the Viking guards

who protect the traitor Gunnar.  A duel between Erik and Iron follows in

which Iron identifies his brother by a tattoo on his chest.  Iron is however

killed by Gunnar, who hopes to blame Erik for the deed and bring the full

wrath of the Viking people down on him, but Erik's men and the Vikings see

their common interest and unite to dispose of Gunnar.  I haven't been able

to see this yet, but it seems to be most notable for the director's ability

to shoot elaborate scenes and effects on a shoestring budget, utilizing his

photographic legerdemain.  This is a talent that will be quite valuable on

future projects such as PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES and DANGER: DIABOLIK, where

convincing futuristic visuals were made for next to nothing.  One impressive

example of this skill on ERIK is in the way Bava filmed the battle scenes

with only twenty extras.  He covered the lens with twelve strips of paper

and filmed his actors with multiple exposures of the same stock, each time

having the warriors in a different space, and each time removing a different

one of the twelve strips.  The final shot thus looked to contain 240 people.

He masked the bareness of his sets by engulfing them in clouds of colored

smoke.  ERIK was the second Bava film distributed in the US by AIP.  They

sold it with the ad line, "Perhaps the only Viking movie to use pasta

battleships", which in fact it did.

Like many other European directors Mario Bava would have his share of

problems having his films shown in their intended form in the United States

and other English speaking countries.  Not only did the Americans have a

more prudish attitude at the time towards certain subject matter and

graphical images on screen, but they also took genre films less seriously,

feeling that they needed to direct them toward children rather than adults

to achieve profitability.  This problem continues to the present day where

American fans of such directors such as Dario Argento are lucky to see

stories the way in which they were intended.  The greatest injustice done to

Bava's artistry probably occurs with BLACK SABBATH and LISA AND THE DEVIL

(both discussed below) and to two titles produced in 1963.  The subject

matter in both LA FRUSTA E IL CORPO (THE WHIP AND THE BODY aka WHAT!, 1963)

and LA RAGAZZA CHE SAPEVA TROPPO (THE GIRL WHO KNEW TOO MUCH aka THE EVIL

EYE, 1963) were definitely strong for the time, but the complete alterations

in theme given them by the American distributors is so extensive as to

seriously hamper two of Bava's better films, and to mask their importance as

influences on the progression of the genre.  THE GIRL WHO KNEW TOO MUCH is

generally considered the starting point for the Italian film murder mystery

dubbed the giallo.  These stylistic thrillers tend to rely on bizarre plot

twists and focus on the how and why of crimes equally as much as on the who

and what.  In THE GIRL WHO KNEW TOO MUCH, Bava applies his style to an

homage to Hitchcock.  Leticia Roman is Nora Dralston, an American visiting

an aunt in Rome.  After a chaotic chain of events that occurs when she

seeks a doctor to treat her heart attack suffering relative, she witnesses a

man stabbing a woman to death.  Nora is a suspicious and jittery sort who is

fearful and distrustful of all men, and her confused state over what she

thinks she has seen, on top of her natural neurosis, casts a question on

these events.  When the body can't be found the police and the doctor,

played by John Saxon, don't believe her claims.  She moves in with another

doctor, Dr. Terrani, and his wife Laura, who were friends of her aunt and

are now living in the aunt's house.  When Nora learns of a series of murders

that have gone unsolved in the area, dubbed "the alphabet murders" as the

victims are selected in sequence that way, her panic increases over the

killing she believes she saw as she thinks that she will be the next victim.

Dr. Terrani becomes her prime suspect, and a reporter named Landini helps

her to investigate.  All evidence is shown to point toward Terrani, while

Nora herself begins to be directly threatened through phone calls and

strange deliveries.  Our suspicions are shattered when Terrani is found

stabbed and dying.  As he reveals to Nora that it is his wife Laura who is

the guilty party, Laura attempts to finally eliminate Nora, who is saved at

the last minute by the near death Terrani.  Bava has said that even though

his previous project ERIK THE CONQUEROR was profitable, with the then

current success of horror films, in his next movie "l had to continue to

kill."  Little did he know that this method of depicting killings would take

root as a common style over the next fifteen or so years in his homeland.

This story is Bava's first set in contemporary times, and in fact the stark

surroundings of the modern big city would become a staple of the giallo. The

settings are in contrast to most of those in Bava's future projects as well.

Those which aren't set in the past frequently have their characters move

through older buildings with elaborate antique surrounding which serve to at

least elicit an atmosphere of past times.  Bava played on Nora's perceptions

of the events that occur around her, how they effect her psyche, and how

that altered psyche effects the activities of the killer. Portraying the

film's protagonist as a person who stumbles into the world of the criminal

and alters it would also be utilized in future imitations.  Some specific

plot devices later picked up on by Dario Argento in his films, which would

elevate giallos from exciting thrillers to works of art, are worth noting.

The influences of some other Bava films on Argento in the areas of style and

technique will be discussed later, but THE GIRL WHO KNEW TOO MUCH is

important for some elements of the narrative that will be built upon.  The

concept of Nora being a person who is not only an interloper to the world of

the criminal, but is a complete foreigner in her surroundings (she is an

American), allows for an extra sense of both her vulnerability and naivete.

Argento's protagonists would often fit this mold, most notably the American

writer Peter Neal in TENEBRAE.  The method of using the disposition of the

true culprit as a form of subterfuge until the story's end is also notable.

Argento would be greatly influenced by this plot device when he began his

giallos in 1969 with L'UCCELLO DALLE PIUME DI CRISTALLO (THE BIRD WITH THE

CRYSTAL PLUMAGE).  That story would also involve a witness to an act of

violence who is confused to it's actual circumstance upon investigation due

to his preconceived notion that a woman could not be responsible.  Argento's

heavily crafted thrillers are made with multi layered stylistic devices.  By

the time he produced his first masterpiece, 1975's PROFONDO ROSSO (DEEP

RED), he had begun utilizing not only plays on his viewer's senses through

manipulating their expectations of story lines, but would also begin to

incorporate the artistic devices of color composition, soundtrack, and camera

placement and movement, to convey his uneasy and nightmarish visions to his

audience.  THE GIRL WHO KNEW TOO MUCH is a definite influence upon the

narrative style of these films, but it was another Bava creation, BLOOD AND

BLACK LACE from 1964, which provided the visual springboards.  Thus while

THE GIRL WHO KNEW TOO MUCH doesn't ultimately come across as completely

successful as a mystery, it is important in being the genesis for the notion

that elements other than strict "whodunit" could drive a crime drama.  One

important factor which is missing from THE GIRL WHO KNEW TOO MUCH, and which

distances it from future giallos, is that it's in black and white.  Color

photography would serve as an important part of the films to come.  When AIP

picked this up for showings in the US they were uneasy with the subtleties

of the plot, and with those subtleties being so dominant throughout the

story AIP decided to attempt to play them off as humor through re-editing

and dubbing.  The result came out as THE EVIL EYE, and the features which

make this movie influential as well as interesting are buried.  They also

again dubbed on a new Les Baxter score.

LA FRUSTA E IL CORPO (THE WHIP AND THE BODY aka WHAT!, 1963) is Bava's first

gothic horror film since BLACK SUNDAY, and it is his first in color.  It is

also one of his masterpieces.  WHIP uses sado-masochistic and psycho-sexual

themes to present a series of intense contrasts within the framework of a

ghost story.  Bava makes his only attempt at a substitute for Barbara

Steele, something many other directors would do with varying degrees of

success, with Daliah Lavi in the lead role as Nevenka.  She is up to the

challenge both as an actress and in appearance.  The plot has Christopher

Lee as the evil Kurt, returning to the castle of his father Count Menliff

for the occasion of his brother Christian's marriage to Nevenko.  Kurt is

unwelcome by the residents and there is considerable unease as to his

presence.  Years earlier he had been run out after his lover Tania had

killed herself over his rejection.  Tania's mother is the housekeeper and

has sworn retribution upon Kurt.  She keeps the blood stained dagger encased

in glass to remind her of his crime.  Kurt had been the lover of Nevenka

also, and was at one time engaged to marry her.  The attraction/repulsion

she felt for him continues at the time of his return, straining her new

marriage to Kurt's brother which was arranged by the Count.  Soon after his

return Kurt encounters Nevenka on the beach and whips her violently.  He

lectures "You always loved violence" before lashing out.  What seems to be a

horrible encounter takes on a perverse sexuality as she is seen to clearly

enjoy the beating, and the encounter ends in an embrace after the whip has

torn away her clothing.  This tension between love and hate, and between

pleasure and pain, amongst the two main characters is the driving dialectic

of the film.  Later that night while all the other occupants of the castle

are searching for the missing Nevenka, Kurt is killed with the bloody dagger

after hearing a ghostly voice call to him.  This event and his subsequent

entombment by red hooded pallbearers is the true starting point for the

movie.  Up until Kurt's death it had been shot in a fairly conventional

style, but with this scene the direction takes on a very stylistically eerie

quality.  The scene leading up to Kurt's stabbing is the first of many

intricate and drawn out episodes, containing very little dialog and

involving the camera precisely moving through and exploring the carefully

constructed settings.  Before the knifing it follows him as he travels

stealthily through the building, tracking behind him and sweeping ahead, as 

he goes through a secret passage and spies in on his father on the way to

his quarters.  The scenery is dark and backlit with deep blues and with

occasional red and green accents.  A moody classical score carried by subtle

piano helps to develop of sense of unnaturalness, suggesting occult

possibilities at this early juncture.  While Kurt is clearly alive at this

point, we are introduced to the possibility of him as specter, and when he

is stabbed it is after an otherworldly female voice calls out to him,

solidifying this image.  From this point forward the film is a series of

increasingly lurid intervals of this nature, rarely moving out of the dark

and moody confines of the castle.  Soon the father is killed with the same

dagger in a similar fashion, and behind the murder mystery which develops

within the mise en scene of the film, there develops a mystery to the

viewers concerning whether Kurt's ghost is present or if he is actually alive.

Nevenka is startled by a series of incidents in which she is drawn to the

lurking presence of Kurt, and her psyche becomes disturbed to a greater

extent after each one.  At first she only hears the sounds of his whip, but

eventually he emerges with it in hand to administer his sexual torture.

When she first actually encounters his visage it is peering into the house,

framed within a window.  Bava liked using this technique to throw back upon

the audience a sense of their spying in on something which will lead to

frightening results.  Similar scenes would be used effectively in both BLACK

SABBATH and KILL, BABY KILL during this period.  There is always set up a

contrast between the victim's fear as her attacker approaches, and her

eventual ecstasy over the results.  One effective scene has Kurt's

menacingly green lit hand reaching toward the camera and at a screaming

Nevenka, only to eventually caress her head upon reaching it.  Bava had set

up this scene by using false scares earlier in the film in which a hand

comes from out of the frame to grab a startled victim, only to be quickly

revealed to belong to a harmless friend.  After another beating Kurt's face

is shown to move in toward Nevenka's, changing from being lit in blue to

green and to red as it gets closer, finally being only a set of lips that

approach her.  When the whipping is performed on the bare back of Nevenka it

is always shown from the perpetrator's point of view, giving the audience

the chance to perceive themselves as administering the act as the reaction

changes from one of torture to one of pleasure.  This is another technique

that Argento would come to incorporate into his projects frequently and with

great effect.  The film resolves into a tense final 20 minutes in which

Christian and the groundskeeper find muddy boot prints leading into Kurt's

tomb while frantically searching for the missing Nevenka.  When they open it

they find her half unconscious inside, and get a notion that Kurt may not be

dead.  A great scene has them open the casket to reveal a decomposed and

unidentifiable body, which is burnt in hopes of insuring Kurt's destruction.

Nevenka slips away, and during her final encounter with the lurking evil

brother reveals the deepness of her love to him, but also the intensity of

her dislike.  While embracing she moves a knife around his back to stab him,

and when she thrusts it in, Christian and the groundskeeper have arrived and

are staring through a window as they watch her alone piercing her own

stomach.  There thus seems to be a further dilemma with the conclusion.  The

lust and guilt filled mind of Nevenka drove her to the killings, but we must

decide if her encounters with the evil brother are the products of her

mind's desire for perverted pleasure, or if the spirit of the dead man was

continuously returning, visible only to her, and allowing for each to

fulfill their own particular sadistic or masochistic urges.  The final shot

zooms in on the lash in flames amongst the burning corpse; the whip and the

body destroyed.  Naturally, this juxtaposition of eroticism and violence, with

suggestions of pleasure both by the giver and receiver of such treatment,

was too much for the American distributors.  They edited out the more lurid

elements and titled what was left WHAT!, which was then sold using Chris

Lee's name.  While this version, without the depiction of the posthumous

Kurt's acts, makes little narrative sense having been stripped of it's

subtext, it is still fascinating to watch the frightening atmosphere that

Bava was able to develop with his technique.  It's no wonder that most

American critics expressed confusion over it, and it's incidents like these

which lead to not only Bava, but many of his peers, not getting the respect

they deserve as directors in The States.  In another attempt to anglicize

the credits Bava took the alias "John M. Old" on WHIP.

I TRE VOLTE DELLA PAURA (aka BLACK SABBATH, 1963) was another AIP

collaboration, and their input allowed them to again do a hatchet job on a

Bava film.  BLACK SABBATH is a trilogy of tales highlighted by the

appearance of Boris Karloff, who was secured for the project by AIP.  The

English language version has Karloff delivering introductory talks to each

segment, culminating in his own appearance in "The Wurdalak" which ends that

variation of the film.  Bava plays on many subtexts to provide the chills

throughout, and Karloff's vampire story is the only true horror tale.

Contrary to most US viewers my favorite section has always been "The

Telephone", number two in AIP's cut.  This story was stuck into the middle

as the US producers felt that the other segments, which have a higher

supernatural element to them, were needed to scare the audience both coming

and going.  "The Telephone" is appealing to me in that it is a visual

precursor to Bava's soon to be made masterpiece BLOOD AND BLACK LACE, which

I consider to be his best film.  In "The Telephone" the camera

voyeuristically explores the sexuality of its female leads, especially the

very beautiful Michele Mercier.  In this story Rosy, played by Mercier, is

tormented by phone calls from a dead former lover, who threatens retribution

against her.  She summons Mary, an acquaintance played by Lydia Alfonsi, to

stay with her for comfort.  When the evil intruder arrives he strangles Mary

with a stocking, but Rosy is able to catch him by surprise with a concealed

knife before he can kill her too.  This version presented the former lover

as a ghost returned from the grave hungry for revenge.  What is interesting

is the manner in which the victims are depicted, especially in the final

confrontations.  Bava lingers seductively over their attractive features and

plays sexual mind games with the viewers before the temptresses are

"punished" by some independent act of violence.  This segment has distinct

similarities to the classic BLOOD, and some of the ideas that went into that

film are worked out here.  In one shot Mary's black gloved hands are focused

on while she teasingly handles a large kitchen knife.  Thanks to the

research of The Video Watchdog (issue no. 5) who translates and compares the

two versions of the movie, it is shown that this segment was intended to be

a prototypical giallo proper.  The original dialog and editing reveal that

Mary is in fact using the prison escape of prostitute Rosy's ex-lover pimp

to seduce Rosy into bed with her.  Mary is shown to be making the

threatening calls posing as the pimp, who is never portrayed as being dead.

There is no supernatural presence whatsoever, and the killer's arrival at

the end is a surprise.  While suggestions of lesbianism remain for the

observant viewer, and thus still allow for some suggestions of "guilt" on

the women's part, Arkoff and Nicholson were uncomfortable with its

overtness and altered the plot accordingly.  Feeling that their younger

target audiences needed more horror, they used this opportunity to introduce

the ghost.  They even included a new final shot of the telephone again

ringing ominously after Rosy has killed her pursuer.  The other segments are

more horrific.  "The Wurdalak" also has a subtext to elicit uneasiness.  In

it Karloff if the patriarch of a family, who in killing a local vampire (he

keeps its severed head as a trophy) attracts the condition himself.  When

he returns home he sets about converting his family to vampiric ways through

both violence and seduction; this is the way of a Wurdalak.  Eventually

Vlad, a family visitor, is converted by his lover, the Karloff character's

daughter.  The visuals are classic Bava with darkly lit blue backgrounds,

swirling fog, and foreboding surroundings - visuals similar to those

concocted for HERCULES IN THE HAUNTED WORLD and the later PLANET OF THE

VAMPIRES.  Karloff is excellent, and a plot containing violence against

one's own family, incestuous underpinnings, and the final conversion of all

to evil without pain or punishment, are all unique and unsettling.  The third

section of BLACK SUNDAY is "The Drop of Water" and it makes use of

psychological torment to portray a woman sinking into psychosis from her own

fear and guilt.  A nurse steals a ring from the finger of a just deceased

mystic and the ghastly figure haunts her for the crime - or is it just in

the nurse's mind?  The story is short and well constructed, and the director

uses many devices, both visual and aural, to suggest the haunting presence

of the dead woman to the nurse.  Roaming cats, discarded baby dolls, and the

innocent dripping of water from various sources are a constant reminder of

the croaked medium.  The protagonist's contorted face, with her hands

clinging around her own neck when the police find her dead, is macabre.  They

conclude she died of fright, but was she murdered by the specter as we the

viewers saw?  The Video Watchdog piece also reports that AIP altered the

intended order of the segments so as to provide the monsters of "The Drop of

Water" and "The Wurdalak" first and last.  Bava created stories with an

intentionally defined running order, that is obvious to the careful viewer,

by utilizing match on action shots which end and begin the various segments.

"The Telephone" was intended to start the film, as its stabbing death

matches the depicted death by stabbing of the original Wurdalak by Karloff

in that section which originally ran second.  "The Wurdalak" ends with

three family members staring through a window as the final person is

converted into the evil clan (the "Three Faces of Fear") and "The Drop of

Water" then begins with the Nurse's face staring through a window.  Without

this linkage, AIP had Bava direct Karloff's narrative intros to each segment,

which don't appear in the European version.  These short pieces are amusing

and worth looking at.  The US producers also snipped out a few of the more

graphic shots from "The Wurdalak" and again pulled one of their favorite

tricks by having Les Baxter rescore the soundtrack.  The original cut has

been put out on LD in Japan, in Italian with Japanese subtitles.  Hopefully it

will one day be subtitled into English.

While THE GIRL WHO KNEW TOO MUCH laid the groundwork for the giallo, the

film which most expertly introduces the elements which would come to define

that style is SEI DONNE PER L'ASSASSINO (aka BLOOD AND BLACK LACE, 1964).

Bava had previously explored the place of women in a patriarchal society in

BLACK SUNDAY, THE GIRL WHO KNEW TOO MUCH, and THE WHIP AND THE BODY, but the

idea of women being the objects of both a voyeuristic fetishism and the

victims of punishment for this role by men is most completely developed in

this effort.  He creates a series of highly developed and visually complex

"set pieces" where the principal function is not what will happen, but how

it will be carried out.  Bava saw the story as written as a mundane crime

drama, and thus decided to use that story to convey something different

altogether.  If the script as filmed were read it would still seem a bit

trite, but in the actual completed work the crimes are elevated to a level

as to be the elements around which it revolves.  This is a film in which the

images on the screen far more convey the experience to the viewer than does

the narrative.  The Italian title literally translates to "Six Women for the

Murderer", and accordingly the viewer is left with no question as to what

will happen through the first 80% of the movie.  The story takes place in a

fashion salon where one of the models, who is involved in some scandalous

activities involving drugs and sex, is murdered.  In the wake of the killing

it is discovered that she has kept a diary which may implicate some other

employees in various illicit activities.  Their scrambling for control of

the diary allows for a background upon which one woman after another is

eliminated.  Models are chosen as victims as they are beautiful and their

role in society is to be objects of adoration.  While none of the victims is

herself involved in any killing, each is depicted as being tainted in some

way prior to meeting up with the villain.  The story around the murderous

set pieces is intentionally bland, filmed in a straightforward fashion and

being carried by a rather uneventful police investigation.  When the set

pieces begin however things shift into stylistic overload.  An opening

sequence in which the credits role against a background of a skull and

flashing colored lights sets the style.  When a murder scene takes place the

soundtrack heats up, the sets become complexly and colorfully lit, and the

settings used are intricately designed.  The camera becomes fluid as it

lingers and then tracks and pans through the decor.  Color schemes are

complex and the extended scenes are constructed to not only highlight the

beauty of the women, who are fully made up and in their best model garb, but

also to develop a sense of cinematic beauty.  This is of course directly in

contrast with the fact that a violent and horrible murder is being

approached.  There is no question in the audience's mind as to what will be

the end result of the scene being viewed, yet they are still asked to be

aesthetically pleased as it unfolds.  After introducing this style Bava even

indulges in a bit of subterfuge with his viewers.  One model enters into her

home, which has not yet been shown.  As a dark coated figure is seen hunched

over the fireplace with its back to us the music becomes animated and

amplified, the room has a darkly lit look, and the camera zooms in.  We are

set for violence, when the figure is revealed to be the elderly woman

housekeeper.  After the false alarm the more conventional, brighter lit,

style returns.  While void of any nudity or of much blood, the killings are 

still carried out in gruesome and torturous fashion, and the victims are often

posed provocatively, and reveal skin and undergarments while the act is being

executed.  As a substitute for actual grue the filmmaker utilizes bright red

objects intruding into the camera's space at key moments for graphic

suggestiveness.  Tension is developed between the attractiveness of the

initial images, and the repulsion of the acts which follow.  This is

magnified by the garb of the killer.  He wears a cloak and hat, with black

gloves, and a cloth wrapped around his head, producing the image of a man

with a completely blank face.  The killer is thus not "him", an ugly or evil

beast who can be despised, but a blank faced "anyone" who could be the

viewer himself.  At one point a cop states that the crimes are "obviously

the work of a sex maniac".  This turns out to be incorrect in the world of

the film, but it could be true when reflected upon the audience.  When the

story resolves it is not the police who uncover what has happened, but

events are allowed to unfold for the camera only to see.  There is actually

a good deal of complexity in the conclusion, where we find there to be two

killers (a man and a woman) rather than one, and where we are led down a

twisting path toward motivations and the eventual outcome.  The influence of

this work not only on the giallo films in general, but on their leading

practitioner Dario Argento in particular, is noteworthy.  Argento's giallos

will not only make extensive use of the sexual attraction/violent repulsion

dichotomy, but will frequently portray his killer with a black gloved hand

as Bava does here.  Argento will make use of gender confusion with women

killers in key works of his such as BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE, FOUR

FLIES ON GREY VELVET, and DEEP RED, and will also use dual murderers in his

masterpiece TENEBRAE.  BLOOD AND BLACK LACE stands with BLACK SUNDAY as

Bava's finest work.  It was released unedited in the US by The Woolner

Brothers.

Never one to stagnate, Bava next accepted a directing role in the newest

wave of exploitation to hit Italy - the spaghetti western.  These European

westerns are divorced of the folklore which often hampers their American

predecessors, and this allowed for some unique twists on the genre, with the

unsettled, libertarian, American west providing a framework for some

nontraditional movie making ideas.  These films were coming out more

frequently at this time, and Bava's first of three efforts in the field, LA

STRADA PER FORT ALAMO (aka THE ROAD TO FORT ALAMO, 1964) emerged the same

year as the film which would launch European made westerns into a major

creative and economic force, Sergio Leone's PER UN PUGNO DI DOLLARI (aka A

FISTFUL OF DOLLARS, 1964).  THE ROAD TO FORT ALAMO was directed under the

"John M. Old" alias used in THE WHIP AND THE BODY.  While a gang of outlaws

are holding up a bank dressed as federals, their sadistic leader kills an old

woman unnecessarily.  When one member complains of this viciousness he is

abandoned in the middle of the dessert with another outcast.  An army wagon

train escorting a female prisoner picks them up, even though some of the

soldiers are suspicious as to the pair truly  being feds.  The wagon is on

its way to Fort Alamo when it is attacked by Indians.  The two impostors

turn into heroes when they first risk their lives in fighting off the

Indians, and then track down the old gang members and turn in the stolen

bank loot.  I've yet to see this film, however it does seem to incorporate

some of the drawn out violence that characterizes this segment of filmdom,

and Bava's directing style should fit this mold well.  The good vs. bad

elements and happy ending go against the ambiguity of character that would

later be staples in the oat operas however.  Shifting gears once again,

Bava's next project was in science fiction.  This field is one in which the

more drawn out and introspective style of European cinema hasn't been as

effective as in others, and Bava's TERRORE NELLO SPAZZIO (aka PLANET OF THE

VAMPIRES, 1965) suffers from some of the similar problems as do its

companions.  Shocks which are drawn from emotional manipulation rather than

bombastic effects don't play as well in the realms of aliens, space travel,

and advanced gadgetry, and thus most Continental offerings in this area are

a bit slow paced and dull.  However Bava's strength as a master of visuals

does play well here, and a film that could use a some faster pacing and a

little more action in its script is made enjoyable by the space ship

interiors and alien landscape exteriors that the director creates.  The

screenplay was co-written by SFX film veteran writer Ib Melchior, and is

based on the story "One Night of 21 Hours" by Renato Pestriniero, originally

published in "Interplanet #3".  Barry Sullivan is the pilot of one of two

ships called by an SOS signal to a foreboding planet while traveling through

space.  The crew of the other ship is apparently wiped out in the descent,

but they are revived through a strange foreign possession which drives them

into bloodthirsty pursuits of the survivors.  When exploring the planet's

surface, a previously destroyed craft is found with the huge skeleton of

its deceased monstrous occupant pilot inside.  It is a previous victim of

the planet's evil creatures.  The story develops that the ships were drawn

to the world by its bloodthirsty occupants, and unfolds around the attempts

of the remaining living crew to escape alive.  In doing so they must deal

with the dead and possessed posing as human.  Victims are encased in upright

body bags from which the space vampires emerge.  (Yes it does sound a bit

like THE THING and ALIEN).  There is an EC-like ending were the survivors

make their escape to an empty Earth and become its colonizers.  Bava's knack

for cleverness in the color composition in his shots contributes greatly to

the creation of an effective looking hostile planet surface.  Blue lighting

dominates, with spots of carefully placed red and green, amidst swirling fog

and eerie and unnatural geography.  This foreshadows a similar lighting

scheme that Bava would employ on his last project, as a set designer on Dario

Argento's INFERNO (1980).  Bava uses his lighting and camera skills to

adequately transcribe a feeling of agitation in the characters, resulting

from their surroundings, with a only low budget and a sound stage at his

disposal.  The sleek and metallic interiors of the ships and the tight black

suits which the crew wear, complete with emblems resembling Nazi SS

insignia, add to a movie which is a pleasure to look at.  AIP again handled

US distribution.

1966 was a busy year, with the maestro being involved in three very different

projects.  AIP were anxious to work further with Bava, and through their

Italian contact Fulvio Luciano they hired him to make the sequel to their

minor hit DR. GOLDFOOT AND THE BIKINI MACHINE.  Vincent Price was signed to

play the lead role in LE SPIE VENGONA DEL SEMIFREDDO (aka DR. GOLDFOOT AND

THE GIRL BOMBS, 1966), Bava's only outright comedy.  The project was

troubled from the start, and AIP chief Sam Arkoff attributes much of this to

problems with the Italian cast, which included model Laura Antonelli and the

comic duo of Franco and Ciccio.  Fabian was also on hand.  The poor script

and disorganized production probably had as much to do the failure of the

project as did its not being a style which best suited the director's

talents.  The story has Price as a mad scientist working on the side of the

Chinese government.  He attempts to coerce the Americans and Soviets into a

nuclear war.  He creates bikini clad female robots with bombs in their

navels who are sent to seduce UN members and blow them up.  Not only is this

Bava's worst film, but it is also probably the worst soundtrack to feature

Davie Allan and the Arrows.  Price is quoted as expressing dismay with the

outcome after hearing buddy Karloff's praise of Bava's work on BLACK SABBATH.

Bava made his only on screen appearance as an angel near the movie's end.

RINGO DEL NEBRASKA (aka SAVAGE GRINGO, 1966) is another entry into the

growing spaghetti western field, and is officially credited to Antonio Roman

under the alias Anthony Roman.  The Video Watchdog has reported, from an

interview with Fulvio Luciano, that screenwriter Roman (who had previously

worked with Bava on PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES and THE ROAD TO FORT ALAMO) was

listed as director of the AIP production to secure a subsidy from the

government of Spain.  It's difficult to track down today, and thus I can't

comment on it artistically or offer information as to its story line.

By 1966 Bava had created wholly on his own only two real horror films,

BLACK SUNDAY and BLACK SABBATH, and by this time the Italian renaissance

which he had defined was in full swing.  OPERAZIONE PAURA (aka KILL, BABY

KILL, 1966) is his best looking horror title (beating out BLACK SUNDAY by

the virtue of its color photography) and would be Bava's last true entry in

this area until 1972.  KILL, BABY KILL returns to the gothic atmosphere of a

19th century village haunted by an evil spirit who resides in a local

castle, a setting common in this contemporary horror revival.  A coroner

comes to the village to aid the local police in determining whether a recent

death was due to suicide or if it involved foul play.  This killing, which

opens the film, expertly captures a terrified woman fleeing from an evil the

audience doesn't yet know.  Her death by back to front impalement after

falling atop a spiked fence is a startling way to begin, and when it is

followed by a shot of what appears to be the feet of a watching little girl,

some suggestion of things to come is made.  The outsider doctor finds a

fearful and suspicious town who are resentful of his presence.  Bava lets

the source of their fear develop gradually, and thus the viewer doesn't fully

become aware of the form the evil takes until the film's end.  As the story

proceeds we see that death has come quickly to residents who cross the

demon.  A local sorceress is shown to apply barbaric magical treatments to a

young girl who has been given the sign of impending demise, and she is also

found to be responsible for a coin discovered buried in the heart of the

doctor's autopsy subject.  She inserts the coin with a knife to protect the

souls of the departed.  The death sign is to see the image of a female child,

recalling what was shown following the opening death.  We see small

hand prints, a bouncing ball, and then a face peering through a distant

window.  The way that these object are filmed tells us that they are linked

to the killings, but we aren't yet told how.  The doctor and a young woman,

who has just returned to the village after leaving at the age of two,

uncover the source of the curse, and locate it to a crumbling castle shunned

by the villagers.  The young girl is revealed to be the ghost of a small

child who had been trampled by horses and then bled to death while chasing

after her ball, as the drunken villagers watched without aid.  She now

forever exacts her revenge on them by causing her victims to themselves

bleed to death.  The story is not complex and was in fact written in a very

short time, as the entire production was carried out on an accelerated

schedule.  The sets are again quite intricately designed, a deep golden

color dominates most scenes, and there are an abundance of dark corridors

and hidden corners suggesting a lurking unknown.  Bava's best work as

cinematographer is probably in KILL, BABY KILL.  He first captures the

claustrophobic paranoia of the citizens of the burg, and then slowly allows

the viewers in on the source of their troubles through selective shots.

There aren't the outright graphically shocking scenes which occur in most of

the director's horror and thriller works, but he still elicits a creepy feel

with his ability to create on screen images quite artistically.  The castle

itself is given an otherworldly essence by its occupying non logical filmic

space.  Movements from room to room do not always put characters in places

that reality would dictate them to be, a technique mimicked to a great

extent by Argento in his witch's lairs in SUSPIRIA and INFERNO.  At one

point the young doctor chases a fleeing figure through a series of closed

doors.  As he passes through the next one we see him entering the room he had

just left.  He gains ground on the figure he pursues, and upon catching up to

it finds it to be himself.  The interplay of family is prominent again as

the heroine, who returned from college to pay homage to her dead parents, is

revealed to actually be the daughter of the castle's matron and the sister

of the now ghostly killer.  She had been sent away as a child for her own

protection.  Women of differing strengths and character are given dominant

roles in the story while the men are mostly observers.  The violent ghost

girl, her grown and more sophisticated sister, the befuddled and disheveled

old mother, and the darkly pretty sorceress who offers both the living and

the dead some protection from the curse, play off of each other.  KILL, BABY

KILL had very limited US distribution, showing most widely as one third of

an "Orgy of the Living Dead" trilogy in the early seventies under the title

THE CURSE OF THE LIVING DEAD.  It was co-billed with REVENGE OF THE LIVING

DEAD (aka THE MURDER CLINIC, 1966, dir: Elio Scardamaglia aka Michael

Hamilton) and FANGS OF THE LIVING DEAD (aka MALENKA, THE VAMPIRE, 1968, dir:

Armando De Ossorio).

After all of that activity things slowed a bit over the next two years.  The

director's only 1967 release was another Cameron Mitchell Viking epic titled

RAFFICA DI COLTELLI (aka KNIVES OF THE AVENGER, 1967).  Bava received his

credit under the pseudonym "John Hold".  KNIVES is more violent than the

first Mitchell Nordic saga.  Harald, the king of the Vikings, has been away

at sea for three years, worrying his wife Karen.  She consults a mystic

about his condition who informs her that Harald is alive, but that there are

bad times of some other sort ahead.  Aghen, a banished Viking, fulfills

this prophecy when he and his marauders overrun the kingdom, and he attempts

to solidify his position as king by forcing Karen to marry him.  While her

abduction is being attempted she is rescued by Rurik, played by Mitchell, an

outsider who had raped Karen on the night of her wedding years earlier

because of his hatred for her people.  He now wishes to make amends, and he

manages to keep his identity hidden from her.  Rurik also wishes revenge upon

Aghen for the villain's brutal murder of his wife and son.  Rurik defeats

Aghen in combat but the latter is able to escape, and he then engages in a

second battle when Harald returns and recognizes him.  Before either emerges

victorious the news comes that Aghen has kidnapped Harald's son, and the two

set out together against their common enemy.  Rurik slays Aghen, achieving

his revenge, and leaves the proper ruling family of the tribe intact on

their throne.  KNIVES is a competent, and rather straightforward for Bava,

action flick which comes rather late in the Viking cycle.  The use of an

alias suggests that Bava looked at this project as a job, and he didn't

devote as much effort in developing it into an artistic statement as with

some other films from around this time.  Producer Dino De Laurentiis wished

to cash in on the success of Roger Vadim's comic like fantasy BARBARELLA,

and thus obtained the film rights to the comic book super criminal Diabolik,

which was created and written by Angela and Luciana Giussani.  De Laurentiis

is always one to go way out (witness his 1976 KING KONG remake) and he

procured a budget of several million dollars for his goal of making an over

the top tour de force of special effects and elaborate sets.  Bava was

signed on to direct DIABOLIK (aka DANGER: DIABOLIK,1968) with John Phillip

Law as the black leather jumpsuit clad thief and Marisa Mell falling out of

her skimpy clothes as his partner and lover.  The story follows Diabolik as

he cleverly outwits a determined police inspector and a Mafioso, while

pulling off a series of audacious robberies and amazing escapes.  It is well

written and Diabolik's trickery is quite entertaining.  Bava reveals himself

to be a capable action director, and the elements of humor work despite the

failure of GOLD BOMBS.  The highlight of the film is Diabolik's mod styled,

high-tech, batcave like lair.  Bava is at his best when creating a fantastic

surrounding for his characters to move through, and the cave fits this bill.

The avant-garde living quarters are reminiscent of the Playboy mansion of

the sixties mixed with computer banks and complex machinery.  As in the

BLOOD AND BLACK LACE set pieces, his use of swirling and zooming camera

work, and soundtrack accompaniment, are most active within the cave setting,

adding to the sense that this is a unique place.  We are introduced to

this dwelling by Bava's camera tracking Mell's character as she moves

through it.  The camera travels through windows and around walls in a method

which reveals perspectives from places that a human intruder couldn't

occupy.  Ennio Morricone provided the score, and it is one of his best

outside of Sergio Leone's westerns.  His humorous use of aural signals on

the soundtrack is in full force.  As is the filmmaker's style, he delivered

the project considerably under budget, using technique to achieve the

results that De Laurentiis planned to get with elaborate sets.  The producer

was quite happy with the result and tried to convince Bava to film a sequel,

but Bava was reported to be unhappy with De Laurentiis' meddling in the

creative process, especially his demand for no blood to be shed, and thus

declined.  There is in fact no blood or graphic violence, and no nudity, so

this one is strictly a PG.  With a much smaller budget it's still as good or

better than a large number of the Bond films.

A return to the giallo would characterize the next few years, with three of

the next five projects falling somewhere within that definition.  The first

of these, IL ROSSO SEGNO DELLA FOLLIA (aka A HATCHET FOR THE HONEYMOON,

1969) is the logical successor to BLOOD AND BLACK LACE.  While that earlier

film essentially took the premise that the "who" of the story was not the

important element, it still allowed for some plot twists at the end and thus

maintained some suspense elements.  Bava decided to dispense with any

pretense of mystery in HATCHET, as very early on there is a monologue by the

killer telling of his crimes.  Stephen Forsyth is the henpecked husband of a

shrewish wife who owns a wedding salon.  The irony of a man driven into a

murderous rage by his unhappy marriage, and being his wife's underling at a

bridal gown shop, is fully played upon.  He vents his rage by murdering women

who are newlyweds or who are approaching their nuptials.  The murders serve

as devices for his recalling a deeply repressed memory, which finally 

emerges as his remembrance of his killing of his own mother.  His troubled

relationship with her is now projected onto his wife.  Again a series of

violent set pieces are the film's main ingredients, and they always take

place with some form of wedding related backdrop.  As is the Bava style,

each murderous scene is a drawn out episode that can stand on its own, and

is stylistically executed to deliver its thrills.  One notable example has

the killer engaging in a ballroom dance with his next victim, through a

darkened studio of mannequins dressed in wedding gowns.  As the couple glide

through and around the dummies, leading up to the slaughter, so does the

camera.  In another the killer dons a bridal veil for the final attack on

his wife.  HATCHET attempts to play upon gender confusion by making the

culprit's motivation derive from a his threatened manhood, due to his

emasculation by his wife/mother.  The wearing of the veil is a final and more

obvious display of this confusion.  HATCHET is similar in structure to BLOOD

AND BLACK LACE, but the driving force behind the violence isn't as powerful

as the former's depiction of the women being guilty of, and punished for,

their beauty.  Bava's final western was up next, ROY COLT AND WINCHESTER

JACK (1970).  It's been described as a "comedy western", and the basic plot

concerns two outlaws battling for the leadership of their pack.  After the

loser is ejected, he becomes a lawman and is responsible for rounding up the

old gang when they illegally go after some treasure.  Tim Lucas reports that

Bava made a sexually explicit film next, FOUR TIMES THAT NIGHT (1970), but

I've only come across his one reference to it.  He states that it is a

variation on Kurosawa's ROSHOMON.

The next giallo entry is CINQUE BAMBOLE PER LA LUNA D'AGOSTA (aka FIVE DOLLS

FOR AN AUGUST MOON, 1970).  Bava has called this his worst film, and he has

described his work on it as essentially a walk through.  The script is a

variation on the "Ten Little Indians" theme, and Bava claimed that he was

completely disinterested in it.  His quote is, "They gave me a check on

Saturday and shooting commenced on Monday".  It tells of ten people staying

in a large beach house, who begin to drop one by one.  Bava's lack of

interest and the very straightforward story make the goings somewhat slow,

but it still has the maestro behind the camera and thus some creative

flourishes emerge from place to place.  The murders are committed with some

flair, and there are touches of the expected weirdness through color

compositions and image juxtapositions.  He also introduces a twist in the

script in which the assumed hero turns out to be the killer.  FIVE DOLLS is

not really a bad film, but it is a bad Mario Bava film, with only occasional

high points which Bava gets through despite himself.  It is interesting to

compare the differing results which came from this lackluster screenplay

with those from BLOOD AND BLACK LACE.  There the director had a vision for

producing thrills from elements beyond the basic story, and his best film

emerged.  With FIVE DOLLS he must have lacked the drive to create yet

another twist in the presentation of the murder mystery plot after the

mediocre artistic success of HATCHET, and all that remained was the

straightforward story.  A highlight is the presence of the Edwige Fenech, the

Queen of the Giallos, who would come to be prominently featured throughout

the seventies in the genre, notably in the works of Sergio Martino.  This

was never released in the US, but English language prints were made for

distribution in the UK.  Bava was quoted as saying, "I had to avenge myself

somehow", and this he did with the outrageous statement of his next film.

Rather than rely on psychological, or even visual, elements to drive a crime

thriller, he went in the opposite direction toward excess.  In this project

he also returned to being involved with the writing.  If I had to pick the

entry which stands apart as the most unique for the director amongst this

filmography, it would have to be ECOLOGIA DEL DELITTO (aka TWITCH OF THE

DEATH NERVE, 1971).  It has been released under at least nine different

titles, including the ludicrous LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT II.  TWITCH has

nothing in common with the Wes Craven torture fest.  While Bava could be

violent when necessary in his other projects, none depicted the outright

gore that is found in this one.  The story revolves around a power struggle

for the control of an undeveloped lake between the property's heirs, some

developers, and the lower class locals living around it.  In a guessing game

as to who is guilty of murder, suspects are knocked off one after the other.

One perpetrator becomes the next victim like a row of falling dominos.  The

bloody excesses are actually part of a very black comedic theme, and the

gore effects are displayed quite graphically.  Ads boasted about the 13

murders that could be seen, and that number is significant as this film has

many striking similarities (at least in story if not in construction) to the

first couple of FRIDAY THE 13TH installments.  Amongst the murders are the

hanging of a wheelchair bound victim, a decapitation, and scenes directly

lifted for the first FRIDAY where a couple in bed are simultaneously speared

through the mattress and a woman has her face split with an axe.  One of the

most effective parts has a skinny dipping girl encountering a floating,

rotted corpse, which again precedes an Argento scene, this time in the Bava

constructed underwater section of INFERNO.  As there is a killer roaming

free it loosely can be called "giallo", much as Argento's PHENOMENA can, but

it doesn't strictly match the conventions of that genre.  TWITCH also

doesn't resemble much else of the director's work.  It is worth seeing by

anyone with a strong stomach and a strong sense of humor.  Be ready for an

outrageous ending when the final two victims are racked up.

A return to horror and the supernatural would be his style for the remainder

of Bava's released film projects, and he worked only sporadically throughout

the decade of the seventies.  The year 1972 saw a collaboration with

producer Alfred Leone that was successful to a certain extent, but sad as

Leone interfered with and muddled LISA AND THE DEVIL, which could have stood

as one of Bava's finest efforts.  Both projects feature stories which return

to a gothic horror format, and concern an evil spiritual presence in an old

baroque mansion.  The first was LISA E IL DIAVOLO (LISA AND THE DEVIL,

1972) as created by Bava, but unfortunately the producer forced a horrible

alteration on it when it was finally released in 1975.  Its transmutation at

that time into THE HOUSE OF EXORCISM was designed to cash in on the then

popular Linda Blair vomit epic.  What can be seen of the original film shows

the complex story of Lisa, played by Elke Sommer, who may or may not be the

reincarnation of a person who was at the center of events causing death and

tragedy at a previous time.  The story is deeply surreal.  In it Telly

Savalas (sucking a lollipop for the first time) plays the Devil, who exists

in the flesh as the butler to a perverse family whom a confused Lisa is

forced to take refuge with on a stormy night when she is lost in Rome as a

tourist.  There has been evil in this family's past, and the confused son of

the blind matriarch sees Lisa as the reincarnation of his long dead wife

Elena.  His also dead stepfather Carlo, who sometimes comes to life through

a dummy resembling him, had been having an affair with Elena which led to

both of their deaths.  The crazed son and the sometimes in the flesh Carlo

battle for the attentions of the confused and frightened Lisa/Elena, while

the Savalas Devil character constantly lurks in the background.  The story

hinges on the concept of The Devil directing the possession of Lisa by

Elena, for the sake of bringing torment to the family.  Bava's gothic

touches create an intriguing look in the old house, and several shocking

deaths along the way also contribute to the horror.  One sequence has the

son chloroforming Lisa/Elena, and lying her in bed next to the rotting

corpse of the original Elena, which he talks to while molesting the

unconscious body.  In the conclusion the son prepares for his marriage to

Lisa, with all of the accumulated bodies of those killed throughout the

course of the film seated at a table Last Supper style.  The rotted corpse

is at the center as the Savalas Devil is set to perform the service.  The

film as originally intended was carefully designed to strike a balance

between questions of whether the butler was The Devil and Lisa was a

possessed reincarnation of this woman from the past, or if she is just a

tool being used by the Savalas character to perpetrate an earthly act of

terror on the unstable mother and child.  The Devil/butler is always shown

to be moving around the fringes of every terrifying occurrence.  What began

as a thoughtful and carefully planned horror tale was reduced to absurd at

the hands of producer Leone.  Wishing to cash in on the popularity of THE

EXORCIST he had Bava direct additional scenes involving Sommer and Robert

Alda, who didn't even appear in the original story, which were inserted

nonsensically at various points in the film.  They show Lisa collapsing in

the streets of Rome, and Alda as a priest accompanying her to the hospital

and then performing an exorcism on her as she becomes effected by possession

to a greater extent.  She turns into a monster, pukes, spits toads, utters

vulgarities, and contorts her body just like Linda, as Alda attempts to

drive the demon out of her.  These inserts were shot without inspiration and

don't match the rest of the film in plot, pacing, or visual style.  Every so

often the original story is interrupted by this intruding saga taking place

at some other location.  Bava did film most of the new material, but he

balked at some of the more extreme images over discomforts due to his

own religious leaning, and thus Leone filmed these himself.  These obnoxious

intrusions ruined the pace and feel of a carefully constructed, atmospheric

thriller.  Lorne Marshall in Videooze #4 has documented the scenes removed

from LISA AND THE DEVIL in it's transformation to HOUSE OF EXORCISM from a

recently unearthed Venezuelan video of the original.  Segments excised from

LISA to make room for the new inserts total about 30 minutes.  An important

change was the substitution of endings between the two versions.  LISA

concludes with a segment resolving that the protagonist was in fact a

ghostly creature who was reliving past guilt, and the story ends with her

traveling back to the unknown.  She emerges from the house in the morning,

and some playing children toss a ball her way.  As it bounces at her feet

(an homage to KILL, BABY KILL) one child screams that she is a ghost as no

one has lived in the house for 100 years.  The final scene has her boarding

a plane and discovering it to be empty.  As she moves through it she

encounters all of the occupants of the house.  Eventually the pilot of the

plane is shown to be the butler, who is euphemistically carting them all

away.  HOUSE opted for a "happy" ending, skipping all of the above for a

conclusion with Alda exorcising the demon from Lisa's body.  Bava was so

disturbed by the hatchet job that he took his director's credit under the

name "Mickey Lion".  The ending's alteration also destroyed Bava's minor

visual link to his next project, GLI ORRORI DEL CASTELLO DI NORIMBERGA (aka

BARON BLOOD, 1972), also made for Alfred Leone and starring Elke Sommer; the

second film opens on a shot of a plane flying through the air and landing.

This story tells of a young student coming to Austria to look over an

ancient castle once owned by his ancestor, the evil Baron Von Kleist, who is

still remembered and despised by the townspeople as the vicious Baron

Blood.  Peter, the descendent, brings with him a parchment telling how to

revive the Baron, and for kicks he and a local woman named Eva, played by

Elke Sommer, try it out.  Naturally the Baron comes back and the murders

resume.  Joseph Cotton plays the evil Baron who in human form is a wealthy,

wheelchair bound developer who arrives to purchase the castle with the

stated intention of recreating its old torture chambers as a haunting

tourist attraction.  Real tortures and murders resume when the wheelchair

bound man transforms into his true form of a mutilated monster.  Peter and

Eva rely on an occultist to provide them with a magical amulet to dispose of

the fiend.  LISA AND THE DEVIL was a film into which Bava put a much greater

emphasis on the plot than in most of his previous ones.  He carefully

developed a script which would allow for his introspective and artistic

vision as a filmmaker to be utilized to its fullest extent.  Perhaps the

disappointment of that effort being diminished by the actions of Leone led

to a lessened enthusiasm for developing more complexity in his next project

for the producer.  Or maybe it was just a natural result for the second of

two films made in the same year.  Despite its rather straightforward story,

BARON BLOOD is not without positives.  As is expected from Bava, the

segments showing the interior of the castle, especially inside the dungeon,

are where the greatest levels of excitement are produced.  When Peter and

Eva explore the torture chamber, one item that they run across is an upright

coffin lined with sharp spikes on its inside.  A reflection on the Mask of

the Demon in BLACK SUNDAY.  A shot of the Baron's victims hanging skewered

on spikes atop the castle is also quite effective.  AIP returned as the US

distributor, and they again cut a few of the more violent moments out and

changed the score to one composed by Les Baxter.

Nothing emerged from the once prolific Bava over the subsequent four years.

The project that he worked on next was CANI ARRABBIATI (aka WILD DOGS,

1974).  It is said to be a contemporary crime story dealing with kidnapping

and organized syndicates.  With the film very near completion however, it

was seized by the producer's creditors as part of a debt settlement, and

what was completed remains unfinished and unseen.  Mario's son, director

Lamberto Bava, has tried to purchase the film from its current owners but

claims that the price is unrealistically high.  Bava's final work for the

big screen uniquely stands out from the majority of his output to an extent

matched only by TWITCH OF THE DEATH NERVE.  ALL 33 DI VIA OROLOGIO FA SEMPRE

FREDDO (aka SHOCK, 1977) is another demonic horror tale, this time centering

on the misdeeds of an evil young boy.  The film is unique in its approach in

that it was created in a much more traditional style than was seen in Bava's

20 years of previous work.  Possibly hampered with inadequate funds to

create the elaborate scenarios that his artistic eye usually brought to

films, SHOCK attempts to make up for this by concentrating on the development

of a strong narrative.  It was successful in that regard, and SHOCK is a

well constructed and enjoyable horror movie.  It stars Dario Argento's

partner Daria Nicolodi as the mother of the strange child.  The story is

developed through its characters and their actions, rather than through

cinematography and editing.  Nicoldi at first appears as a happy and stable

single mother who is moving into a new home with her son and boyfriend.

Things begin to change however when the young boy begins to display some

vicious behavior towards his mother, which causes her stability to weaken.

Bava develops the story by alternating these actions with flashbacks which

show that the mother had been the victim of torment from the boy's drug

addicted father, and has spent the previous years in an asylum.  As she

sinks into psychosis to a greater extent, he plays on the conflicting causes

of her slipping towards another breakdown.  Is it due to her mental state or

is she being pushed there by the demon child?  Bava is at his best with

these flashback scenes, which in a linear fashion expose the background to

the audience.  He also excels in depicting her bouts with shock,

characterized by her strange and violent hallucinations.  The last segment

of the movie is the most powerful, where we finally learn that Nicolodi's

character had in fact killed her former husband to protect herself from him,

and then buried the body in the walls of their house.  This is the house to

which she has now returned.  The conflict as to the cause of her breakdown

is revealed to be supernatural, as the dead husband, through possession of

both the boy and the house, drives her to kill her new lover and herself.

The best scenes are the phantasmagoric flashbacks and the animation of the

house when it helps the evil force to exact its revenge.  In a switch, Bava

may have been influenced by Argento in this production in terms of the

soundtrack.  It is a loud, gothic/prog rock one, which mimics those created

by Goblin for some of Argento's films.  The director's son Lamberto Bava had

served as assistant dating back to PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES, and he has said

that in aiding his aging father that he himself directed a greater portion

of this film than any other credited to Mario.  Lamberto has been active as

the creator a number of horror titles himself since then, including MACABRE

(1980), THE HOUSE WITH THE DARK STAIRCASE (1982), and THE PHOTOS OF JOY

(1987), as well as DEMONS (1985) and DEMONS II (1986) for producer Argento.

In a situation similar to TWITCH OF THE DEATH NERVE and LISA AND THE DEVIL,

SHOCK was presented in America under the title BEYOND THE DOOR II, in an

attempt to play it off as a sequel to an unrelated film.

Daria Nicolodi would also be connected to the final two projects that Mario

Bava was associated with.  In 1978 he and Lamberto directed an hour long

segment for the Italian television series "Il Giorno dei Diavolo" (which

translates to "The Devil's Notebook") titled VENUS OF ILLE (or "Venus of

Evil").  Nicolodi stars as a woman who is about to be married.  The father

of her husband-to-be discovers a buried bronze statue of Venus on his

property, which they display for marital good luck.  When the groom stashes

the wedding ring on the statue's finger and then forgets it there, he is

forced to use another in the ceremony.  Venus comes to life and in trying to

claim her new husband crushes him to death on his bed.  The story is set in

1837, and Bava is said to have effectively created an atmospheric depiction

of that time.  Nicolodi once told an interviewer that it may be shown on

cable TV in the US, but I am not aware of its ever being available for

viewing in this country.  Dario Argento's INFERNO (1980), co-written by

Nicolodi, would be the last item that Mario Bava was associated with.  He

served as an uncredited art director and special effects designer on this

tale of a witch's occupation of a bizarre building in New York City.  Anyone

who has enjoyed such Bava creations as HERCULES IN THE HAUNTED WORLD, BLACK

SABBATH, or PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES will immediately see his influence.  The

haunted mise en scene of the house is captured through a careful painting of

its secret rooms, and hallways to nowhere, in combinations of deep red,

blue, and green lights.  Bava's eye for the visual and Argento's genius with

pacing, camera movement, and editing, combine for on the best sequences in

any of Argento's films.  In exploring the nuances of the house early in the

story, the heroine discovers a hidden basement which is completely filled

with water.  As she swims through it in an attempt to recover her dropped

keys, the room is revealed to be an elaborate and old ballroom.  As she

moves through the water and stumbles across its hidden secrets, Argento and

Bava fashion a beautifully choreographed trip through a strange environment.

The scene's most shocking moment recalls Bava's TWITCH OF THE DEATH NERVE,

when a rotted corpse is inadvertently dislodged and floats after the fleeing

and frightened girl.

Selected references -

articles:

"Terror Pioneer" by Tim Lucas, Fangoria no. 42, Feb 1985

"Bava's Terrors Part 2" by Tim Lucas, Fangoria no. 43, Mar 1985

"Black Sabbath: The UnMaking of The Three Faces of Fear", by Tim Lucas

  and Alan Upchurch, Video Watchdog no. 5, May/Jun 1991

"The Barbara Steele Interview" by Christopher S. Dietrich and Peter

  Beckman, Video Watchdog no. 7, Sep/Oct 1991

"Bedeviled Bava" by Lorne Marshall, Videooze no. 4, 1992

Special Giallo Issue by Craig Ledbetter, European Trash Cinema vol. 2, 

  no. 6, 1992

"Blood and Black Lace" by Andy Black, Necronimicon no. 2, Jun 1993 (UK)

"Mask of Satan" by Andy Black, Necronimicon no. 3, Sep 1993 (UK)

books:

The Video Watchdog Book by Tim Lucas, Video Watchdog, 1992, ISBN:

  0-9633756-0-1

The Encyclopedia of Horror Movies ed. by Phil Hardy, Harper & Row,

  1986, ISBN: 0-06-096146-5

The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film by Michael Weldon, Ballantine,

  1983, ISBN: 345-34345-5

Broken Mirrors, Broken Minds: The Dark Dreams of Dario Argento by

  Maitland McDonagh, Sun Tavern Fields (UK), 1991. ISBN: 0-9517012-4-X

Mario Bava by Pascal Martinet,  Edilig (France), 1984, ISSN: 0294-0957.

  A 126pp monograph in Filmo no. 6, with bibliography.

As is evident from the above, Tim Lucas of The Video Watchdog has done some

of the most extensive research into the films of Mario Bava.  He has long

spoken of writing an extensive work on the subject to be titled "The Haunted

Worlds of Mario Bava", and the latest reports have it with a tentative

publication date in 1994.

Mario Bava filmography -

The format for films which have Bava as director is to first list the most

common title as released in the United States, followed by the original

Italian title in parenthesis.  The exceptions are with LISA AND THE DEVIL

and SHOCK, as attempts to associate them with unrelated earlier films

through retitlings is ridiculous.  Additional titles used for release in the

US, Italy, or the UK follow.  Non English or Italian variations are

omitted.  Films not released in the US are listed by their most common

title of release in England, or by the literal translation of the original

Italian title.

As director:

BLACK SUNDAY (La Maschera del Demonio) aka The Mask of Satan aka The Demon's

Mask aka Revenge of the Vampire aka House of Fright - 1960.  A Galatea

Films/Jolly Films (Italy), and AIP (US) release; Dr/Co-Wr/Co-C/Se/Co-Art-Dr:

Mario Bava, Pr: Massimo de Rita, Co-Wr: Ennio de Concini, Marcello Coscia,

Mario Serandrei, Co-C: Ubaldo Terzano, M: Roberto Nicolosi (Europe), Les

Baxter (US), Co-Art-Dr: Giorgio Giovannini, Asst-Dr: Vana Caruso, E: Mario

Serandrei (Europe), Salvatore Billitteri (US), Cast: Barbara Steele, John

Richardson, Ivo Garrani, Andrea Checchi, Arturo Dominici, Enrico Olivieri,

Clara Bindi, Antonio Pierfederici, Clara Bindi, Tino Bianchi, Germana

Dominici, Mario Passante, Tino Bianchi, Renato Terra, b/w, 86(83) min

HERCULES IN THE HAUNTED WORLD (Ercole al Centro della Terra) aka Hercules at

the Center of the Earth aka Hercules in the Center of the Earth aka Hercules

vs. the Vampires aka The Vampire vs. Hercules aka With Hercules to the

Center of the Earth - 1961.  A Spa Cinematografica (Italy), Woolner Brothers

(US) release; Dr/Co-Wr/Co-C/Se: Mario Bava, Pr: Achille Piazzi, Co-Wr:

Allesandro Continenza, Duccio Tessari, Franco Prosperi, Co-C: Ubaldo

Terzano, M: Armando Trovajoli, Art-Dr: Franco Lolli, Asst-Dr: Franco

Prosperi, E: Mario Serandrei, Cast: Christopher Lee, Leonora Ruffo, Reg

Park, Giorgio Ardisson, Marisa Belli, Ida Galli, Ely Draco, Grazia Collodi,

Franco Giacobini, Mino Doro, Monica Neri, color, 91(73) min

ERIK THE CONQUEROR (Gli Invasori) aka The Invaders aka Fury of the Vikings -

1961.  A Galatea/Criterion Films (Italy), Societe Cinematographique Lyre

(France), and AIP (US) release; Dr/Co-Wr/Co-C: Mario Bava, Pr: Massimo de

Rita, Co-Wr: Oreste Biancoli, Piero Pierotti, Co-C: Ubaldo Terzano, M:

Roberto Nicolosi, Art-Dr: Giorgio Giovannini, Asst-Dr: Franco Prosperi, E:

Mario Serandrei, Cast: Cameron Mitchell, Andrea Checci, Francoise Christophe,

Folco Lulli, Giorgio Ardisson, Ellen Kessler, Alice Kessler, Franco

Giacobini, Joe Robinson, Raffaele Baldassarre, Enzo Doria, Franco Ressel,

Livia Contardi, Jean-Jacques Delbo, color, 98(88) min

WHAT! (La Frusta e il Corpo) aka The Whip and the Body aka The Body and the

Whip aka Night is the Phantom aka The Way and the Body aka Son of Satan -

1963.  A Leone Film (Italy), Francinor (France), PIP/Vox Film (UK), and

Futurama (US) release; Dr: Mario Bava (as John M. Old), Pr: Elio

Scardamaglia (as John Oscar), Co-Wr: Ernesto Gastaldi (as Julian Berry), Ugo

Guerra (as Robert Hugo), Luciano Martino (as Martin Hardy), C: Ubaldo

Terzano (as David Hamilton), M: Carlo Rustichelli (as Jim Murphy), Art-Dr:

Ottavio Scotti (as Dick Grey), Asst-Dr: Ernesto Gastaldi (as Julian Berry),

E: Roberto Cinquini (as Bob King) Cast: Christopher Lee, Daliah Lavi,

Luciano Stella (as Tony Kendall), Harriet White, Isli Oberon, Luciano

Pigozzi (as Alan Collins), Jacques Herlin, Gustavo de Nardo (as Dean Ardow),

color, 92(77) min

THE EVIL EYE (La Ragazza che Sapeva Troppo) - aka The Girl Who Knew Too Much

1963.  A Galatea/Coronet (Italy) and AIP (US) release; Dr/Co-Wr/Co-C: Mario

Bava, Pr: Massimo de Rita, Ferruccio de Martino, Lionello Santi, Salvatore

Billitteri, Co-Wr: Ennio de Concini, Eliana de Sabata, Franco Prosperi, Mino

Guerrini, Enzo Corbucci, Co-C: Ubaldo Terzano, M: Roberto Nicolosi (Europe),

Les Baxter (US), Art-Dr: Giorgio Giovannini, Asst-Dr: Franco Prosperi, E:

Mario Serandrei, Cast: Leticia Roman, John Saxon, Valentina Cortese, Dante

di Paolo, Robert Buchanan, Gianni di Benedetto, Jim Dolen, Virginia Doro,

Chana Coubert, Peggy Nathan, Marta Melecco, Lucia Modugno, Franco Morigi,

John Stacy, Milo Quesada, Tiberio Murgia, Titti Tomaino, Pini Lido, Dafydd

Havard, b/w, 92 min

BLACK SABBATH (I Tre Volte della Paura) aka The Three Faces Of Fear aka

Black Christmas aka The Three Faces of Terror - 1964.  A Galatea Films/

Emmepi Cinematografica (Italy), Societe Cinematographique Lyre (France) and

AIP (US) release; Dr/Co-Wr: Mario Bava, Pr: Paolo Mercuri, Salvatore

Billitteri, Co-Wr: Marcello Fondata, Alberto Bevilacqua, Ugo Guerra, C:

Ubaldo Terzano, M: Roberto Nicolosi (Europe), Les Baxter (US), Art-Dr:

Giorgio Giovannini, E: Mario Serandrei, Cast: Boris Karloff, Michele

Mercier, Lydia Alfonsi, Gustavo de Nardo, Susy Andersen, Mark Damon, Glauco

Onorato, Rika Dialina, Jacqueline Soussard (as Jacqueline Pierreux), Milly

Monti, Harriet White, Massimo Righi, color, 100(95) min

BLOOD AND BLACK LACE (Sei Donne per l'Assassino) aka Fashion House of Death

aka Six Women for the Murderer - 1964.  An Emmepi Cinematografica (Italy),

Productions Georges de Beauregard (France), Top Film/Monarchia Films (W.

Germany) and Woolner/Allied Artists (US) release; Dr/Co-Wr: Mario Bava, Pr:

Massimo Patrizi, Alfredo Mirabile (as Alfred Mirabel), Lou Moss (English

version), Co-Wr: Marcello Fondato (as Marcel Fondat), Joe (Giuseppe)

Barilla, C: Ubaldo Terzano (as Herman Tarzana), M: Carlo Rustichelli (as

Carl Rustic), Art-Dr: Arrigo Breschi (as Harry Brest), Ed: Mario Serandrei

(as Mark Suran), Cast: Eva Bartok, Cameron Mitchell, Thomas Reiner, Arianna

Gorini, Mary Arden, Franco Ressel, Massimo Righi, Giuliano Raffaelli,

Luciano Pigozzi, Dante di Paolo, Enzo Cerusico, Mara Carmosino, Lea Kruger,

Claudia Dantes, Harriet White, Nadia Anty, Heidi Stroh, color, 90(85) min

THE ROAD TO FORT ALAMO (La Strada per Fort Alamo) aka Arizona Bill - 1964.

A Protor Film/Piazzi Produzione Cinematografica (Italy), Comptoir Francais

du Film (France), and World Entertainment Corporation (US) release; Dr:

Mario Bava (as John M. Old), Co-Wr: Vincent Thomas, Charles Price, Jane

Brisbane, C: Bud Third, Cast: Ken Clark, Jany Clair, Michel Lemoine,

Andreina Paul, Kirk Bert, Antonio Gratoldi, Dean Ardow, color, 100(82) min

PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES (Terrore nello Spazio) aka Demon Planet aka Planet of

Blood aka The Haunted Planet aka The Planet of Terror aka Terror in Space

aka The Outlawed Planet aka The Planet of the Damned - 1965.  An Italian

International Film (Italy), Castilla Cinematografica Cooperativa (Spain),

and AIP (US) release; Dr/Co-Wr: Mario Bava, Pr: Fulvio Lucianso, Salvatore

Billitteri, Ib Melchior (English version), Co-Wr: Callisto Cosulich, Antonio

Roman, Alberto Bevilacqua, Rafael J. Salvia, Ib Melchior and Louis M.

Heyward (English version), C: Antonio Rinaldi, M: Gino Marinuzzi Jr, Antonio

Piere Olca, Art-Dr: Giorgio Giovannini,  Cast: Barry Sullivan, Norma Bengel,

Angel Aranda, Evi Morandi, Fernando Villena, Ivan Rassimov, Rico Boido,

Massimo Righi, Stelio Candelli, Mario Morales, Franco Andrei, Alberto

Cevenini, color, 88(86) min

KILL, BABY, KILL (Operazione Paura) aka Curse of the Living Dead aka Curse

of the Dead aka Operation Fear - 1966.  A FUL Films (Italy) and Europix

Consolidated Corp. (US) release; Dr/Co-Wr: Mario Bava, Pr: Nando Pisani,

Luciano Catenacci, Co-Wr: Romano Migliorini, Roberto Natale, John Hart

(English version), C: Antonio Rinaldi, M: Carlo Rustichelli, Art-Dr: Sandro

Dell'Orco, Asst-Dr: Lamberto Bava, E: Romana Fortini, Cast: Enrica Bianchi

Colombatto (as Erika Blanc), Giacomo Rossi-Stuart, Fabienne Dali, Gianna

Vivaldi, Piero Lulli, Max Lawrence, Giuseppe Addobbati, Franca Domonici,

Micaela Esdra, Mirella Pamphilli, Valeria Valeri, color, 85(75) min

DR. GOLDFOOT AND THE GIRL BOMBS (Le Spie Vengona del Semifreddo) aka Dr.

Goldfoot and the "S" Bombs - 1966.  An Italian International Film (Italy)

and AIP (US) release; Dr: Mario Bava, Pr: Fulvio Luciano, Louis M. Heyward,

Co-Wr: Louis M. Heyward, Robert Kaufman, Franco Castellano, Pipolo, James

Hartford, C: Antonio Rinaldi, M: Les Baxter, Cast: Vincent Price, Fabian,

Franco Franchi, Ciccio Ingrassia, Laura Antonelli, Moana Tahi, Francesco

Mule, color, 85 min

SAVAGE GRINGO (Nebraska il Pistolero) aka A Gunman called Nebraska - 1966.

An Italian International (Italy), Castilla Cinematografica release (Spain),

and AIP (US); Dr: Mario Bava (credited to Antonio Roman as Anthony Roman),

Wr: Antonio Roman, Cast: Ken Clark, Yvonne Bastein, Piero Lulli, Renato

Rossini, Alfonso Rojas, Antonio Gradoli, Angel Ortiz, Livio Lorenzon, Aldo

Sambrell, Renato Terra, Paco Saenz, color, 82 min

KNIVES OF THE AVENGER (Raffica di Coltelli) aka Viking Massacre - 1967.  A

World Entertainment Release of a Sider Films production; Dr/Co-Wr: Mario

Bava (as John Hold), Pr: P. Tagliaferri; Co-Wr: Alberto Liberati, George

Simonelli, C: Antonio Renaldi, M: Marcello Giambini, Asst-Dr: Robert Glands,

E: Otello Colangeli (as Othello), Cast: Cameron Mitchell, Fausto Tozzi,

Luciana Polletin, Elissa Picelli (as Elisa Mitchell), Giacomo Rossi Stuart

(as Jack Stewart), British, Mike Moore, Renato Terra, Sergio Cortona, color,

86 min

DANGER: DIABOLIK (Diabolik) - 1968.  An S.P.A. (Italy), Marianne Productions

(France) and Paramount (US) release of a Dino De Laurentiis Cinematografica

production; Dr/Co-Wr: Mario Bava, Pr: Dino De Laurentiis, Co-Wr: Dino

Maiuri, Brian Degas, Tudor Gates, Angela Giussani, Luciana Giussani, Adriano

Baracco, C: Antonio Rinaldi, M: Ennio Morricone,  Art-Dr: Flavio Mogherini,

Asst-Dr: Lamberto Bava, Ed: Romana Fortini, Cast: John Phillip Law, Marissa

Mell, Michel Piccoli, Adolfo Celi, Terry Thomas, Claudio Gora, Edward Febo

Kelleng, Caterina Boratto, Giulio Donnini, Annie Gorassini, Renzo Palmer,

Mario Donen, Andrea Bosic, Lucia Modugno, Giorgio Gennari, Giorgio

Sciolette, Carlo Croccolo, Giuseppe Fazio, Lidia Biondi, Isarco Ravaioli,

Federico Boito, Tiberio Mitri, Wolfgang Hillinger, color, 98 min

THE ODYSSEY - 1968.  One of eight 55 minute segments made for Italian TV by

producer Franco Rossi.  Bava did special effects work as well on other

segments.  This was edited down to movie length and distributed worldwide as

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES.  The compressed version contained 18 minutes of

Bava directed footage.

A HATCHET FOR THE HONEYMOON (Il Rosso Segno della Follia) aka Blood Brides

aka An Axe for the Honeymoon aka The Red Sign of Madness - 1969.  A Pan

Latina Films/Mercury Films (Spain, Italy), G.G.P. Pictures (US) release,

Dr/Co-Wr/Co-C: Mario Bava, Pr: Manuel Cano Sanciriaco, Co-Wr: Santiago

Moncada, Mario Musy, Co-C: Antonio Rinaldi, M: Sante Romitelli, Art-Dr: J.M.

Herrero, Cast: Stephen Forsyth, Dagmar Lassander, Laura Betti, Jesus Puente,

Femi (Eufemia) Benussi, Antonia Mas, Luciano Pigozzi (as Alan Collins),

Gerard Tichy, Fortunato Pasquale, Veronica Llimera, color, 93(83) min

FIVE DOLLS FOR AN AUGUST MOON (Cinque Bambole per la Luna d'Agosta) - 1970.

A Produzioni Atlas Cinematografica (Italy) release; Dr/E: Mario Bava, Pr:

Luigi Alessi, Wr: Mario di Nardo, C: Antonio Rinaldi, M: Piero Umiliani,

Art-Dr: Giuseppe Aldebaran, Cast: Ira Fuerstenberg, Edwige Fenech, William

Berger, Renato Rossini (as Howard Ross), Helena Ronee, Edy Galleani (as

Justine Gall), Edith Meloni, Teodoro Corra, Mauro Bosco, color, 88(81) min

ROY COLT AND WINCHESTER JACK - 1970 (1975 in US).  A Libert production of a

P.A.C./Tigielle release; Dr: Mario Bava, Co-Wr: Di Nardo and Agrin, Cast:

Brett Halsey, Marilu Tolo, Charles Southwood, Teodoro Corra, color, 90 min

FOUR TIMES THAT NIGHT - 1970.  (Does anyone have any info on this?)

TWITCH OF THE DEATH NERVE (Ecologia del Delitto) aka Bay of Blood aka

Bloodbath Bay of Blood aka Antefatto aka Reazione a Catena aka The Ecology

of a Crime aka Carnage aka Last House on the Left II aka New House on the

Left aka Before the Fact-Ecology of a Crime - 1971.  A Nuova Linea

Cinematografica (Italy), Hallmark (US) release; Dr/Co-Wr/Co-C: Mario Bava,

Pr: Giuseppe Zaccariello, Co-Wr: Carlo Reali, Giuseppe Zaccariello (as

Joseph McLee), Filippo Ottoni, Dardano Sacchetti, Franco Barberi, Co-C:

Antonio Rinaldi, M: Stelvio Cipriani, Art-Dr: S. Canevari, Cast: Claudine

Auger, Luigi Pistilli, Claudio Volonte, Anna Maria Rosati, Laura Betti,

Chris Avram, Brigitte Skay, Isa Miranda, Leopoldo Trieste, Paola Rubens,

color, 90(76) min

LISA AND THE DEVIL (Lisa e il Diavolo) aka The House of Exorcism aka The

Devil and the Dead aka The Devil in the House of Exorcism - 1972.  A

EuroAmerica (Italy), Tecisa (Spain), Roxy (W. Germany) and Peppercorn

Wormser (US) release; Dr/Co-Wr: Mario Bava (as Micky Lion), Pr: Alfred

Leone, Co-Wr: Roberto Natale, Giorgio Manlini, Alberto Tintini, Alfred

Leone, C: Cecilio Paniagua, M: Carlo Savina, Art-Dr: Nedo Azzini, Se: Franco

Tocci, Cast: Elke Sommer, Telly Savalas, Sylva Koscina, Alida Valli, Alessio

Orano, Gabriele Tinti, Eduardo Fajardo, Carmen Silva, Franz von Treuberg,

Espartaco Santoni, color, 98(93,91) min

BARON BLOOD (Gli Orrori del Castello di Norimberga) aka Chamber of Tortures

aka The Blood Baron aka The Thirst of Baron Blood aka The Torture Chamber of

Baron Blood - 1972.  A Euro International Film (Italy), Dieter Geissler (W.

Germany), and AIP (US) release; Dr/Co-Wr: Mario Bava, Pr: Alfred Leone,

Co-Wr: Vincent Forte, Willibald Eser (as William A. Bairn), C: Antonio

Rinaldi, M: Stelvio Cipriani (Italy), Les Baxter (US), Art-Dr: Enzo

Bulgarelli, Se: Franco Tocci, C
ast: Joseph Cotten, Elke Sommer, Antonio

Cantafora, Massimo Girotti, Luciano Pigozzi (as Alan Collins), Dieter

Tressler, Humi (Umberto) Raho, Rada Rassimov, Nicoletta Emmi, color, 92(90)

min

WILD DOGS (Cani Arrabbiati) - 1974. Incomplete and unreleased.

SHOCK (All 33 di Via Orologio Fa Sempre Freddo) aka Shock [Transfer Suspense

Hypnos] aka Beyond the Door II aka Suspense - 1977.  A Laser Film (Italy)

and Film Ventures (US) release; Dr: Mario Bava, Pr: Turi Vasile, Co-Wr:

Lamberto Bava, Francesco Barbieri, Paolo Briganti, Dardano Sacchetti, C:

Alberto Spagnoli, M: I. Libra, Art-Dr: Francesco Vanorio, Cast: Daria

Nicolodi, John Steiner, David Collin Jnr, Ivan Rassimov, Nicola Salerno,

color, 95(87) min

LA VENERE D'ILLE - 1978.  Made as a one hour segment for the Italian TV

show "Il Giorno dei Diavolo" ("The Devil's Notebook")

The director's son Lamberto Bava was a frequent (and sometimes credited)

assistant on most films from PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES on.

Short films made before features (as director and cinematographer, except

where indicated):

L'ORRECHIO - 1946

SANTA NOTTE - 1947

LEGENDA SINFONICA - 1947 (co-dir with M. Melani)

ANFITEATRO FLAVIO - 1947 

VARIAZIONI SINFONICHE - 1949

L'AMORE NELL'ARTE - 1950 (dir only) 

As assistant director:

THE WONDERS OF ALADDIN - 1961 (dir: Henry Levin)

As cinematographer:

LA AVVENTURA DI ANNABELLA - 1938

IL TACCHINO PREPOTENTE - 1939

UOMINI E CIELI - 1943

CHRISTMAS AT CAMP 119 - 1948

THIS WINE OF LOVE - 1948

QUEL BANDITO SONO IO - 1949

ANTONIO DI PADUA - 1949

E'ARRIVATO IL CAVALIERE (HER FAVORITE HUSBAND?) - 1950

VITA DA CANI - 1950

MAD ABOUT OPERA - 1950

MISS ITALIA - 1950

GUARDIE E LADRI (COPS AND ROBBERS?) - 1951

GLI EROI DELLA DOMENICA - 1953

VIALE DELLA SPERANZA - 1953

TERZA LICEO - 1954

COSE DA PAZZI - 1954

VILLA BORGHESE - 1954

LA DONNA PIU BELLA MONDO - 1955

ADVENTURES OF GIACOMO CASANOVA - 1955

MIO FIGLIO NERONE - 1956

THE DEVIL'S COMMANDMENT (I Vampiri) aka Lust of the Vampire aka The Vampires

  - 1956 (dir: Riccardo Freda, Bava uncredited assistant)

THE WHITE WARRIOR (Agi Murad il Diavolo Bianco) - 1959 (dir: Riccardo Freda,

  Bava uncredited assistant)

HERCULES (La Fatiche de Ercole) - 1957 (dir: Pietro Francisci)

CITY AT NIGHT - 1957

LA MORTE VIENE DALLA SPAZIO - 1958

THE DAY THE SKY EXPLODED - 1958 (dir: Paolo Heusch)

LABORS OF HERCULES - 1958

CALTIKI, THE IMMORTAL MONSTER - 1959 (as John Foam; dir: Riccardo Freda as

  Robert Hampton, Bava uncredited assistant)

GIANT OF MARATHON (La Battaglia di Maratona) - 1959 (dir: Jacques Tourneur,

  Bava uncredited assistant director with Bruno Vailati)

HERCULES AND THE QUEEN OF LYDIA - 1959

HERCULES UNCHAINED (Ercole e la Regina di Lidia) - 1960 (dir: Pietro

  Francisci, Bava uncredited assistant)

ESTHER AND THE KING (Ester e il Re) - 1960 (dir: Raoul Walsh)

NERO'S MISTRESS - 1962

The above is by no means complete, and as it came from several sources some

titles are in Italian and some in English.  As I don't speak Italian it is

possible that some of the above names are duplicates.  Bava is reported to

have actually directed the majority of both THE DEVIL'S COMMANDMENT and

CALTIKI, THE IMMORTAL MONSTER, and finished GIANT OF MARATHON.  He wrote THE

YOUNG, THE EVIL, AND THE SAVAGE (1970) and was set to direct it before the

producers replaced him with Antonio Margheriti.  Bava also contributed some

effects and photography to ROMA CONTRA ROMA (aka WAR OF THE ZOMBIES, 1965,

dir: Giuseppe Verdi), BABY KONG (1977?), and INFERNO (1980, dir: Dario

Argento).  A couple of sources have attributed him with some camera work on

Freda's L'ORRIBLE SEGRETO DEL DOTTORE HICHCOCK (aka THE HORRIBLE DR.

HICHCOCK, 1962) but this is questionable.

Mario Bava on video - 

These are titles which are available, or have been available in America. THE

DEVIL'S COMMANDMENT, BLACK SUNDAY, KILL, BABY KILL, and the very recently

acquired BLOOD AND BLACK LACE are all sold by Sinister Cinema (see Appendix)

in their original forms.  HERCULES IN THE HAUNTED WORLD has been put out by

Rhino in the Woolner cut at a sell through price.  HBO Video released the

following titles in 1987: BLACK SABBATH (AIP cut), PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES,

and BARON BLOOD (AIP cut, as TORTURE CHAMBER OF BARON BLOOD). ERIK THE

CONQUEROR was released by Twin Tower Enterprises under the title THE

INVADERS.  Media Home Entertainment put out BLOOD AND BLACK LACE (with

scenes removed that are reportedly in Sinister's tape), A HATCHET FOR THE

HONEYMOON, and SHOCK (as BEYOND THE DOOR 2).  SHOCK can also be found in

discount video racks now for under $10 from Video Treasures.  A HATCHET FOR

THE HONEYMOON has also come out under the Nelson Entertainment and

Powersports-American Video (!) labels.  KNIVES OF THE AVENGER was issued

under the title VIKING MASSACRE by Westernworld Video, and DANGER: DIABOLIK

was put out by Paramount.  MPI Home Video has released LISA AND THE DEVIL

(as DEVIL IN THE HOUSE OF EXORCISM) and TWITCH OF THE DEATH NERVE (as BAY OF

BLOOD).  LISA AND THE DEVIL was also released under the HOUSE OF EXORCISM

title by Trans-Atlantic and TWITCH OF THE DEATH NERVE came out from Gorgan

Video under that title.  THE EVIL EYE (as THE GIRL WHO KNEW TOO MUCH), WHAT!

(as THE WHIP AND THE BODY), and FIVE DOLLS FOR AN AUGUST MOON are all

available in their European forms as dupes from Video Search of Miami for

$25 each, PO Box 16-1917, Miami FL, 33116, 305-279-9773, but the picture

quality is probably below average.  Midnight Video sells dupes, said to be

of good quality, of the uncut European versions of BLACK SUNDAY, THE WHIP

AND THE BODY, BLOOD AND BLACK LACE (as SIX WOMEN FOR THE MURDERER), TWITCH

OF THE DEATH NERVE (as BAY OF BLOOD), LISA AND THE DEVIL, and BARON BLOOD

(all in English), and BLACK SABBATH (in Italian without subtitles).  $19.00

each, at 5010 Church Drive, Coplay, PA, 18037, 610-261-1756.  BLACK SUNDAY

and BLACK SABBATH have recently been put out on one laser disk by HBO Image

Entertainment.  Redemption Video in England has recently acquired the rights

to a number of Bava films and will be releasing complete English language

versions, but they will be in the PAL mode.  BLACK SABBATH, BLOOD AND BLACK

LACE, PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES, and HERCULES IN THE HAUNTED WORLD have all

been widely distributed and can be found in most large video stores,

including Blockbuster (the last resort!).  A HATCHET FOR THE HONEYMOON and

SHOCK are also fairly common.

Appendix: Barbara Steele filmography -

BACHELOR OF HEARTS - 1958; Dr: Wolf Rilla

SAPPHIRE - 1959; Dr: 

THE 39 STEPS - 1959; Dr: Ralph Thomas

BLACK SUNDAY aka (La Maschera del Demonio) aka The Mask of Satan aka The

  Demon's Mask aka The Revenge of the Vampire aka House of Fright - 1960;

  Dr: Mario Bava

ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS TV show - "Beta Delta Gamma" episode - 1961

THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM - 1961; Dr: Roger Corman

THE HORRIBLE DR. HICHCOCK (L'Orribile Segreto del Dr. Hichcock) aka The

  Terror of Dr. Hichcock aka Raptus aka The Terrible Secret Of Dr. Hichcock

  - 1962; Dr: Riccardo Freda (as Robert Hampton)

8 1/2 aka (Otto e Mezzo) - 1962; Dr: Federico Fellini

THE GHOST (Lo Spettro) aka The Spectre - 1962; Dr: Riccardo Freda (as

  Robert Hampton)

IL CAPITANO DI FERRO - 1963; Dr:

THE HOURS OF LOVE - 1963; Dr: Luciano Salce

CASTLE OF BLOOD (La Danza Macabre) aka La Lunga Notte del Terrore aka

  Castle of Terror aka The Long Night of Terror aka Tombs of Horror aka

  Coffin of Terror aka Dimensions in Death aka Terrore - 1963; Dr:

  Antonio Margheriti (as Anthony Dawson)

WHITE VOICES (Le Voci Bianche) - 1963; Dr: Pasquale Festa Campanile

THE MONOCLE - 1964; Dr: 

THE LONG HAIR OF DEATH (I Lunghi Capelli Della Morte)  - 1964; Dr:

  Antonio Margheriti (as Anthony Dawson)

YOUR MONEY OR YOUR WIFE - 1965; Dr: Anthony Simmons 

TERROR CREATURES FROM THE GRAVE (Cinque Tombre Per Un Medium) aka The Tombs

  of Horror aka Five Graves for a Medium aka Coffin of Terror;  - 1965;

  Dr: Ralph Zucker

NIGHTMARE CASTLE (Amanti d'Oltretomba) aka The Faceless Monster aka Lovers

  Beyond the Tomb aka Orgasmo aka Night of the Doomed - 1965; Dr: Mario

  Caino (as Allan Grunewald)

AN ANGEL FOR SATAN (Un Angelo Per Satana) - 1966; Dr: Camillo Mastrocinque

THE SHE BEAST (La Sorella di Satana) aka The Revenge of the Blood Beast

  aka Satan's Sister - 1966; Dr: Michael Reeves

SECRET AGENT TV show - "The Man On The Beach" episode - 1966

I SPY TV show - title unknown - 1967

YOUNG TORLESS - 1967; Dr: Volker Schlondorff

THE CURSE OF THE CRIMSON ALTER aka The Crimson Cult aka The Crimson Altar

  aka The Reincarnation aka Spirit of the Dead; - 1968; Dr: Vernon Sewell

HONEYMOON WITH A STRANGER - 1969 (made for TV); Dr: John Peyser

NIGHT GALLERY TV show - "The Sins Of The Father" episode - 1972

CAGED HEAT aka Renegade Girls - 1974; Dr: Jonathan Demme

THEY CAME FROM WITHIN aka Shivers aka The Parasite Murders - 1975; 

  Dr: David Cronenberg

I NEVER PROMISED YOU A ROSE GARDEN - 1977; Dr: Anthony Page

PIRANHA - 1978; Dr: Joe Dante

PRETTY BABY -1978; Dr: Louis Malle

SILENT SCREAM - 1980; Dr: Denny Harris

THE WINDS OF WAR TV miniseries - 1983

WAR AND REMEMBERANCE TV miniseries - 1988

DARK SHADOWS TV series - 1991

Mario Bava, Federico Fellini, Roger Corman, Jonathan Demme, Joe Dante,

Riccardo Freda, Antonio Margheriti, Michael Reeves, Louis Malle, Volker

Schlondorff and David Cronenberg.  That's quite a talented list.

Aid in compiling the above came from "Barbara Steele Videography" by Tim

Lucas and Alan Upchurch in Video Watchdog no. 7 (Sep/Oct 1991), "The Diva of

Dark Drama: Barbara Steele" by Mark A. Miller in Filmfax no. 19 (March

1990), and The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film.  Of the horror titles

above BLACK SUNDAY (European cut!), THE HORRIBLE DR. HICHCOCK, THE GHOST,

CASTLE OF BLOOD, THE LONG HAIR OF DEATH, TERROR CREATURES FROM THE GRAVE,

NIGHTMARE CASTLE and AN ANGEL FOR SATAN (subtitled in English) are available

from Sinister Cinema (PO Box 4369, Medford, OR, 97501-0168, 503-773-6860,

$16.95 each).  THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM is priced for sell through by Warner

Home Video, and they also put out PIRANHA.  THE HORRIBLE DR. HICHCOCK has

also come out in edited form from Republic Home Video, and THE GHOST is

discounted from Liberty Video.  Gorgon Video released THE SHE BEAST.  THE

CURSE OF THE CRIMSON ALTAR was distributed and has since been deleted by HBO

Video.  THEY CAME FROM WITHIN was issued by Vestron Video and Media Home

Entertainment released SILENT SCREAM.  I recommend BLACK SUNDAY (no

surprise!), THE LONG HAIR OF DEATH, NIGHTMARE CASTLE, AN ANGEL FOR SATAN,

and THE GHOST.  These releases are in the US.  (Would someone PLEASE release

Jonathan "Silence of the Lambs" Demme's first movie, CAGED HEAT, on video?

This film which also stars Erica "Vixen" Gavin was produced by New World).

Thanks to Paul White (paul.white@canrem.com) for supplying me with the

Fangoria articles.  I'll get that ZOMBIE tape to you when I'm able Paul!

A Parliafunkadelicment Thang - FUNHOUSE! Evaluates the Albums of Funkadelic

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Funkadelic is one of the earliest incarnations of the George Clinton led

P-Funk universe, and they were the predominant format under which his

twisted funk/rock/soul fusions would appear throughout the first half of the

seventies.  When Brother George decided that his doo-wop group The

Parliaments would benefit by a rock band backing, ala fellow Detroit

acid heads MC5 and The Stooges, he rounded up a gang of young bros for

guitar/bass/drum/organ chores.  At this time George considered these guys

(Ed Hazel - lead guitar, Bill Nelson - bass, Lucas 'Tawl' Ross - guitar,

Ramon 'Tiki' Fulwood - drums, Mickey Atkins - organ) to be "Funkadelic", and

it is their mugs which form the kaleidoscope image on the cover of the first

album.  The Parliaments had issued a few sixties singles, some on Motown and

the minor hit "I Wanna Testify" on Revilot, but interestingly the actual

first album recorded by the full band was 1970's OSMIUM, credited to

"Parliament" (on the Invictus label).  The singers of The Parliaments

(George Clinton, Raymond Davis, Clarence "Fuzzy" Haskins, Calvin Simon, and

Grady Thomas) joined the above musicians with the additions of Gary Shider

on guitar, Tyrone Lampkin on drums, and Bernie Worrell performing all of the

keyboard chores, for the project.  Worrell can be seen these days in the

background as a member of the band on the new "Late Show With David

Letterman".  He also did a stint with the large version of Talking Heads and

is in their film Stop Making Sense.  After the first couple of LP's

"Funkadelic" would come to signify all members of the entourage, which

included just about everyone mentioned above plus others, in various

combinations and formations which varied from track to track on the records.

Due to legal arguments the Parliament title would be retired until the 1974

album Up From The Down Stroke, and all of Clinton's visions would be

broadcast through Funkadelic until then.  When Parliament was resurrected

that band would take on a much more dance floor oriented sound (not that you

can't boogie to Funkadelic), and would be used for Clinton's more concept

oriented projects.  Funkadelic tended a little more toward the nasty side of

things thematically, and almost never utilized the horn section common in

Parliament recordings.  Feedback and acid drenched guitar solos were

featured instead.  The first eight Funkadelic LP's were put out on the

Detroit based Westbound label (1971-1975), but in the latter part of the

seventies when the P-Funk empire reached it's zenith, Clinton would move the

band over to Warner Brothers for the last four (1976-1980) in an attempt to

achieve greater distribution.  This move created some dissension in the

group and started movement toward the schism which would result in the

splitting off of some of the founders (and the to be avoided Connections And

Disconnections phony Funkadelkic recording).  During this peak period of

activity, when P-Funk would also issue music under such labels as Bootsy's

Rubber Band, The Brides of Funkenstein, and The Horny Horns, the musical

divisions between bands became a little more blurred, and the last three

Funkadelic albums (especially Uncle Jam Wants You) contain cuts designed for

booty shaking under the mirrored ball side by side with those for mind

melting trip outs - but still horns were mostly left off.  George himself

summed up the distinction by saying, "Parliament was the glitter, the

commercial, and Funkadelic was the loose, the harsh.  We'd take a couple of

tabs of acid and play whatever we wanted.  Parliament was more vocal, more

disco with horns, and a bit more conservative.  Funkadelic was more guitars

- no horns, more free-form feelings, and more harsh and wild.  Sometimes

there was an overlap, but generally Funkadelic got more pussy than

Parliament."  (From an interview in Motorbooty #3).  In the same discussion

George suggests that Parliament was kept around to keep the group in the

spotlight and earn some cash.

Over the last few years the entire Funkadelic catalog has become available

on both vinyl and CD.  They have regained a larger level of popularity with

new fans coming on board by way of both white boy funk rock bands (such as

the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who have covered Clinton's songs, had him produce

one of their albums, and even featured a P-Funk alumnus on guitar for a

short time), and rap acts who have sampled P-Funk riffs with regularity

(some of the best usage being by De La Soul and Digital Underground).

Westbound themselves have re-issued the eight records that appeared on their

label.  These were put out sequentially over a period of time, and titles

were able to be had as imports from England or Germany prior to US

availability.  I acquired some of the titles as imports, and I only bring

this up to point out that I've found some of them to be of better sound

quality than the domestic versions.  The fidelity on the domestic releases

of the first two albums is somewhat lower than average, however I haven't

listened to the original releases so I can't say if this is an artifact of

the original recording or if it's due to the re-mastering.  There was a long

delay before the Warner Brothers material was available anew due to that

company's refusal to let it go.  Recently these four albums have been put

out by independent labels in both England and America, on vinyl and on CD.

With the entire Funkadelic catalog now available again, we at FUNHOUSE! are

presenting our evaluation of all the albums containing original studio

recordings.  Eddie Hazel died this year at the age of 44.

ratings: one to four electric sugar cubes ([])

FUNKADELIC

1970 - Westbound 2000

[], [], []

Mommy, What's a Funkadelic? / I Bet You / Music for My Mother / I Got a

Thing, You Got a Thing, Everybody's Got a Thing / Good Old Music / Qualify

and Satisfy / What is Soul

The first LP out of the box for the freak boys under the Funkadelic moniker

is a rather subdued effort based on what was to come.  There is a greater

consistency of sound throughout the album than one would come to expect, but

the aural treats were still like nothing else being done at the time.  The

music sounds as if it's emerging out of the depths of the swamps after

midnight, and is dominated by steady and heavy bass lines, with oozing

guitar lead interplay, organ chords, steady drumming, and various

vocalizing coming in and out in the background.  This style is epitomized by

the nine minute plus lead off track.  After George intones, "If you will

suck my soul, I will lick your funky emotions" it takes off with the same

riff being overlaid with various voices and instruments playing off of it.

"I Bet You" and "Music for My Mother" follow the same pattern, but with a

faster line and a stepped up chorus in the first and a country-blues feel to

the autobiographically themed second.  The gears shift with "I Got a

Thing..." which open with a great "waka-waka" intro, and features a wild

guitar and organ jam rave-up in the middle.  "Good Old Music" gives us an

even better taste of Eddie Hazel's worshipping at the alter of Hendrix.

"Qualify and Satisfy" is based on an "I'm A Man" styled blues riff, while

the closer "What is Soul" is an example of the extended experimental tracks

which would turn up on most subsequent releases.  Over weird spaceship

noises George explains what it is that we've just experienced.  After asking

us to loan him our minds so that he can play with it, he tells us that all

that is good is nasty, and we're off.  There's not another album in the

P-Funk universe quite like this in - listen to this voodoo rock after bong

hits.

 

FREE YOUR MIND AND YOUR ASS WILL FOLLOW

1970 - Westbound 2001

[], [] (three if you're really looped, or institutionalized)

Free Your Mind and Your Ass Will Follow / Friday Night, August 14th / Funky

Dollar Bill / I Wanna Know if it's Good to You? / Some More / Eulogy and

Light

This is easily the most whacked collection that George oversaw, and the

spaced out meandering stands in the way of the production of a cohesive

work.  The title song repeats the mantra, "Free Your Mind and Your Ass Will

Follow - The Kingdom of Heaven is Within" in various voices and intonations

while metalish rock jams try to emerge, only to be sucked back down into the

noisy ether.  The strength of the album lies in its next three central

songs.  "Friday Night..." is an up tempo rocker featuring Spacey Eddie doing

his thing, while "Funky Dollar Bill" brings a trio of guitars way up in the

mix to support a tale of street capitalism that features an off the wall

piano line coming and going.  "I Wanna Know..." also utilizes the trippy

guitar jamming that rocks you out, this time to a more soulful beat.  With

"Some More" the band takes a style reminiscent of Booker T And The MGs,

with a subtle guitar line taking a back seat to a lead organ.  "Eulogy and

Light" is the album closing free form message carrying cut here.  If you

were listening from the beginning you might have thought that the title track

served that purpose, but this one eclipses it in its esoterica.  The music

sounds like something backwards masked, and the vocal gives us the

Funkadelic spin on the state of corporate America.  These guys seemed to be

tripping pretty hard while they wrote and performed this album, and if

you're in the mood (or the proper state of mind) for a little weirdness it

can be quite enjoyable.  However the songs aren't structured quite as

strongly as some of their other work, and subsequently it isn't amongst the

group's disks that are in high rotation on my turntable.

MAGGOT BRAIN

1971 - Westbound 2007

[], [], [], []

Maggot Brain / Can You Get to That / Hit It and Quit It / You and Your

Folks, Me and My Folks / Super Stupid / Back in Our Minds / Wars of

Armageddon

Now we're onto something!  This third record is the last to carry the first

generation, more pared down Funkadelic style.  And damn they got it exactly

right!  Maybe after this sound was done to perfection they moved on to

bigger and sometimes equal if not better things.  George lets us know that

the weirdness factor is still intact by delivering "Mother Earth is pregnant

for the third time, for y'all have knocked her up.  I have tasted the

maggots in the mind of the universe, I was not offended.  For I knew I had

to rise above it all, or drown in my own shit" in the opening seconds.  This

then gives way to one of the most unlikely hit singles ever.  Over ten

minutes Eddie Hazel delivers the most emotional and intense recorded track

in history that features no human voice.  Over a simple rhythm guitar

backing, Eddie cuts loose with some of the wildest six string screeching

ever put down.  Through tempo changes, volume fluctuations, feedback coming

in and out, and movements between subtle picking to wild raves, we

experience possibly the best recorded electric guitar performance of all

time (did someone say "six hits of purple microdot"?).  After you're drained

from that trip, they deliver one of the more upbeat Funkadelic songs to

date.  "Can You Get to That" is a good time R&B number with vocal

harmonizing over a heavy chording acoustic guitar.  "Hit It and Quit It"

maintains the upbeat pace with a sound that harkens back to the Funkadelic

of the first two records.  A more traditional Hazel lead carries the song

which gives way to some of the best organ soloing and jamming we've yet

heard.  Eddie returns to his "Maggot Brain" inspirations for a feedback

drenched solo which closes it. "You and Your Folks..." is track with a

gospel feel and some great soul style singing, and its a perfect set up for

the mind melting "Super Stupid".  Slip this one on between Black Sabbath and

Led Zeppelin the next time you're spinning disks with your heavy metal

friends and see if they're shaking their asses without realizing what

happened.  Along with "Alice in My Fantasies" on the Standing on the Verge

of Getting It On album, "Super Stupid" is the dude's heaviest cut.  "Back In

Our Minds" is in the "Can You Get to That" vein, albeit a little bit more

off kilter.  It does feature a rare horn part.  This record's freakout

effort is the album closing "Wars of Armageddon", and it features a little

bit of everything.  Crazy guitar and organ come in and out, while various

chanted words of wisdom are delivered throughout, over the backing of such

sound effects as cows and trains.  A highlight is the wisdom of "More power

to the people - more power to the pussy - more pussy to the people."  Its

finale is an atomic explosion, but rather than that ending it all somehow

the music seems to fight back for a few more bars.  "Wars" is a kick to

listen to despite its idiosyncrasy, and this sets it apart from some of

its partner pieces on other albums which can get tedious if your not in

just the right mood.  Maggot Brain is an album without a bad track, and it

presents the perfect synergy of great rock guitar, bass and drums, heavy

rhythms, mind melting feedback solos, power organ, and tripped out

sensibilities, to an R&B based heavy dance beat.  This was the last attempt

to label Funkadelic as five guys playing instruments.  Soon after, a whole

gang of musicians would appear over various tracks on the records as

everyone was brought under the Funkadelic umbrella.  Maggot Brain's cover

art is equally trippy, with a madly screaming large 'froed woman's head

sitting on the ground on the front cover, and its counterpart on the back

being a skull posed in the same manner.  Liner notes feature literature from

the Process Church of the Final Judgment's "Fear" pamphlet. They were a

Satanic church which Charles Manson has been said to have had some ties to.

AMERICA EATS ITS YOUNG

1972 - Westbound 2020

[], [], []

You Hit the Nail on the Head / If You Don't Like the Effects, Don't Produce

the Cause / Everybody is Going to Make it This Time / Joyful Process / We

Hurt Too / Loose Booty / Philmore / I Call My Baby Pussycat / America Eats

Its Young / Biological Speculation / That Was My Girl / Balance / Miss

Lucifer's Love / Wake Up

Definitely a transition album, this double LP represents a step away from

the garage funk of the first three freak outs, but isn't quite to where the

next series of perfected versions of metal soul will be.  Most Funkadelic

records focus their themes at some cosmic intersection between weirdo

philosophies, sexual innuendoes, and stories of groovy good times.  Good

chunks of America however comment on the ugly politics of the post-sixties

era.  Bernie Worrell steps up with his largest contribution, and thus

keyboards and synths emerge in front of the guitars in many places.  This is

evident on the opening track, in which a couple of minutes of jamming starts

things out with the keyboards leading the way.  Narratively the attention is

on the deteriorating conditions in capitalist America.  This takes its cue

from the Process Church, whose writings again provide the liner notes as

well as the record's title.  Other than the consistent presence of much more

than usual keyboards, strings, backing vocals, and horns, musically it's a

hodgepodge of styles not unlike The Beatles or Sandinista! LPs.  It

sometimes slips into a sound more akin to The Meters ("You Hit the Nail on

the Head, "If You Don't Like the Effects..."), there are 60's styled R&B

ravers ("Philmore", "Wake Up") some gospel like sounds ("Everybody is Going

to Make it This Time"), and even some over-syrupy balladeering ("We Hurt

Too").  The rock sounds come through in the upbeat instrumental "A Joyful

Process", the heavy "Balance" which gets close to where "Super Stupid" was,

and "Miss Lucifer's Love" which goes for a more stripped down sound with a

molten guitar solo in a song with a late period Beatles feel.  "Loose Booty"

achieves what they would later try on Uncle Jam Wants You, a dance track

with punch and intensity.  "Biological Speculations" may be the album's best

effort.  It gets back to rock basics in a style which recalls "Can You Get to

That" from Maggot Brain.  The two most unique songs are those which have the

greatest presence of the nasties.  These are "I Call My Baby Pussycat" which

is a slowed down remake from Parliament's Osmium album (with a chorus of, "I

call my baby pussy..."), and "America Eats It's Young" which has 5:52

minutes of maggoty guitar amongst the organ and horns, accompanying the

sounds of a woman experiencing orgasm interrupted only by Clinton reciting

one of his philosophical spiels.  This review was the last written by me for

this article, and that reflects the difficulty in evaluating the album.  It

was recorded a few years before the resurrection of Parliament, which is

where the horns, backing vocals, and keyboard dominance would find a home.

The best tracks succeed in rocking out despite all of this.  If America Eats

Its Young were trimmed from a double down to a single album it might have

been more consistently enjoyable, but like other "concept" albums it takes

both vinyl slabs to get the whole message across,
and I wouldn't want it to

not all be there.

COSMIC SLOP

1973 - Westbound 2022

[], [], [], []

Nappy Dugout / You Can't Miss What You Can't Measure / March to the Witch's

Castle / Let's Make It Last / Cosmic Slop / No Compute / This Broken Heart /

Trash A-Go-Go / Can't Stand the Strain

Here's a very straightforward recording, with a number of well crafted songs

laid down without a lot of the weirdness and perverse philosophizing

usually found.  After the broad concept of America Eats Its Young, George

probably decided to settle down and deliver the goods on a purely musical

level.  The spoken passages and longer offbeat pieces that are often present

are left off here.  A sacrifice in strangeness doesn't make for a bland

album however, because all of the efforts are right on track.  With this

record a new Funkadelic sound is developed which would be largely the style

they worked in over the next four albums.  The keyboard and orchestration

dominated music of the last record served as a bridge from the style

displayed on the first trilogy of LP's to a more intricate and refined

guitar based feel for this middle period.  Don't worry though - it still

rocks!  The recording quality is really elevated from here on out, and one

gets the feel that the gang took a much more fastidious approach in the

studio.  Loosely (very!) Funkadelic songs from this period fall into one of

three stylistic categories.  First are the more upbeat dance oriented

approaches that represent the harder edge of what will be produced under

the Parliament name.  Second are slower tempoed soul numbers, many times

accompanied by cleanly played guitar solos.  The final are the straight

ahead rockers that are closest to the sound of old .  These styles would

many times merge of course.  Overall, vocal tracks as an element of the music

in the songs are given much more attention.  "Nappy Dugout" is a boogie

number that features a great driving beat with guitars playing off each

other while the euphemistic title is sang.  The group was always good at

spinning off clever ways of referring to private parts and sexual functions.

"You Can't Miss..." keeps things pumping along at the same rate with another

dance tune, this time driven by vocal interplay rather than guitars.

"March to the Witch's Castle" may be the weakest track, with a slowed down

tale about 'Nam vets told over a lead guitar based backing.  The soulful

style continues on in "Let's Make It Last" with a great vocal and some

vicious guitar leads. "Cosmic Slop" is a great rocker and is easily the

central track on the album.  Everything's perfectly in synch on this raver

tale with another suggestive title.  It tells the woeful story of a woman

whoring with the devil to make ends meet.  "No Compute" continues to rock,

although this time with a more upbeat story regarding the mating ritual

(central philosophy: "spit don't make babies").  "This Broken Heart" is a

soul dripper and comes as close to a ballad as the group gets.  "Trash

A-Go-Go" is the hardest rocker and features a heavy, heavy hook with great

background guitar freak outs.  "Can't Stand the Strain" gets us back to the

feel of "This Broken Heart", in a little more upbeat soul number featuring

multiple vocalists.  "Cosmic Slop" may be the best song that they ever did,

and this LP follows closely behind Maggot Brain as their top work.  The acid

drenched/Hendrix/psychedelia guitar noise that had been lurking is cleaned

up here, but that instrument is still predominant and featured loudly

throughout the mix.  This is most likely due to the temporary absence of Mr.

Hazel in the recording, although he would return.  (He is represented by

songwriting credits on "Let's Make it Last" and "Can't Stand the Strain".)

The band is pretty constant over the whole record, which contributes to the

consistency of the sound.  Gary Shider and Ron Bykowski (the "polyester

soul-powered token white devil") handle axe duties, while Cordell "Boogie"

Masson is the bass player throughout.  Likewise Bernie Worrell plays all the

keyboards, and Tyrone Lampkin handles drums on all songs except "Nappy

Dugout" where "Guest Funkadelic Maggot" Tiki Fullwood sits in.  With Cosmic

Slop the densely illustrated covers drawn by Pedro Bell depicting the crazed

world of Funkadelica begin.  His art is featured on all subsequent record

jackets with the exception of Uncle Jam Wants You.

STANDING ON THE VERGE OF GETTING IT ON

1974 - Westbound 1001

[], [], [], []

Red Hot Mama / Alice in My Fantasies / I'll Stay / Sexy Ways / Standing on

the Verge of Getting It On / Jimmy's Got a Little Bit of Bitch in Him / Good

Thought, Bad Thoughts

Fast Eddie's back!  Standing has a similar feel to Cosmic Slop, but it can

also be said to be the most pure rock and roll of all the sonic emanations

from planet P-Funk.  The musicians are identical to those on the last

effort, except that Tiki does all the drumming and Hazel joins Shider and

the Token White Devil on guitar.  The production is cleaner than on the

earlier records, and chord driven rockers don't leave much room for any rump

shakers like last time.  Hazel shares a writing credit with George on each

track, using his composing pseudonym "G. Cook" on all of them except "Red

Hot Mama".  That song is in fact a reworking of a Parliament B-side which

was conceived prior to the Cook alias.  After the commercial success of

Cosmic Slop, Sir Ileb (as George signs the liner notes) felt that a return

of some elements of goofiness could accompany the return of the reverbed

crunch.  And thus we open with 1:22 minutes of musing d'Clinton, heard first

at 78 speed like a hopped up Alvin Chipmunk, and then repeated in the real

time deep tenor of the master.  The one-two punch that kicks of the music of

"Red Hot Mama" and "Alice in My Fantasies", are relentless, driving, head

bangers.  "Alice" delivers the immortal line, "Say baby can you be my dog, I

can be your tree, and you can pee on me" over a sonic blast.  Pearl Jam

should have this cranker shoved up their asses to learn what real hard rock

is all about.  Things cool down just a little for "I'll Stay", which falls

into the category of romantically themed, silky voiced, balladesque songs,

and is accompanied by a subdued guitar.  It's amazing that even with the

subdued guitar there's still room for echo, feedback, and soloing behind the

music up front.  "Sexy Ways" is da funky numba in this lot, with a chooglin'

bass and choppy chording, but alas Eddie can't resist getting off sonically

to the beat.  "Standing on the Verge..." again provides a title track which

is a classic, and it's the song around which all the others are built.  It's

pretty complex in style.  After a start which revisits the album intro with

Alvin rehashing his pee line, the music opens itself up to you for gyrating

your booty, banging your head, or spacing out - depending on your mood or

your disposition.  "Jimmy" is this record's carryover from Cosmic Slop's

"No Compute", a silly and dirty upbeat ditty which informs us that "It's all

in the angle of the dangle, increased by the heat of the meat".  This line

was recently lifted by that TV pontificator Beavis.  As stated above Clinton

felt comfortable bringing back the bizarro quotient left off of Cosmic Slop,

and this record's avant-garde piece is the closer "Good Thoughts, Bad

Thoughts".  If "Maggot Brain" is like tracers at a brilliant sunrise,

"Thoughts" is its counterpart for the wee hours.  A haunting guitar improv

carries on for 6:35 minutes over a light strumming rhythm, before George

delivers some thoughts on consciousness raising and the value of the self

over the final 6:00 minutes.  You Caucasian rockers out there might look to

this LP as a good starting point.

LET'S TAKE IT TO THE STAGE

1975 - Westbound 215

[], [], [], []

Good to Your Earhole / Better By the Pound / Be My Beach / No Head No

Backstage Pass / Let's Take It to the Stage / Get off Your Ass and Jam /

Baby I Owe You Something Good / Stuffs and Things / The Song is Familiar /

Atmosphere

A greater diversity of sounds come from these grooves than from any of those

which preceded them.  The songs are shorter and tightened up, and the first

suggestions of some new directions appear in a few tracks.  The credits

aren't as extensive as on other records, but with E. Hazel and Ron Bykowski

cited as "Alumni Funkadelic", I suspect that their performances are limited.

As Michael Hampton, the guitar hero of the next wave, won't make the scene

until Tales Of Kidd Funkadelic, it's possible that Gary Shider handled most

of the six stringing.  "Good to Your Earhole", "Better By the Pound", and

"Stuffs and Things" contain polyrhythmic dance floor sounds with layered

vocals and a multi instrumental sonic boogie.  The electricity drenched lead

guitar soul style is heard on "Be My Beach" which features another play on

words in its title, and on "Baby I Owe You Something Good" which somewhat

recalls Cosmic Slop's "March to the Witch's Castle" in its heavy plodding.

After the loud rock 'n' rave up of "No Head No Backstage Pass", the two

standout songs of Let's Take It to the Stage are delivered.  "Let's Take It

to the Stage" is a laying down of the gauntlet to the competitors and

pretenders (in Funkadelic's eyes, and with tongues in cheek) who are now

placing themselves under the label of funk.  After informing us that "funk

was a bad word" they stake their claim to the throne over heavy rhythm and

silly nursery rhymes ("Little Miss Muffet, sat on her tuffet, smoking some

THC").  Challenges come from the background directed at the "Godfather? -

Godmother! Grandfather", "Slick and the Family Prick", "Earth, Hot Air, and

No Fire", and "Fool and the Gang".  "Get off Your Ass and Jam" is one of the

purest rock 'n' groove wails ever attempted.  Over the repeated phrasing of

"Shit, goddamn, get off your ass and jam!" some of the jamminest guitar on

any of Funkadelic's records is heard.  It's one of their top rockers.  "The

Song is Familiar" is a soul ballad not unlike those regularly rolled out by

the competitors, but the competitors don't have Gary Shider providing sonic

craziness in the background.  Another "different" track closes the album

with "Atmosphere".  If you take the tune "Good Thoughts, Bad Thoughts" from

Standing on the Verge and substitute organ for guitar, you get "Atmosphere"

TALES OF KIDD FUNKADELIC

1976 - Westbound 227

[], []

Butt-To-Butt Resuscitation / Let's Take It to the People / Undisco Kidd /

Take Your Dead Ass Home (Say Som'n Nasty) / I'm Never Gonna Tell It / Tales

of Kidd Funkadelic (Opusdelite Years) / How Do Yeaw View You?

A collection of mostly outtakes, unpolished compositions, and songs usually

utilized in live jam sessions make up this odds and sodds collection which

closes out the Westbound contract.  Most of the tracks have a solid base to

them, but seem to need a bit of refinement.  "Butt-To-Butt Resuscitation"

sounds as if it could have been Devo or The Tubes playing, with all of the

quirky syntho noises popping up throughout.  "Let's Take It to the People"

is a good mid tempo tune which ends with a patented Funkadelic wild guitar

solo.  "Undisco Kidd" is a tale of dance floor politics which again relies

on keyboard gurgling and guitar doodling to give it uniqueness, rather than

on mind melting rock.  They get back on track with "Take Your Dead Ass

Home", a song with some drive that is reminiscent of "Let's Take It to the

Stage" from the previous album.  This track is dragged down a bit by a

somewhat silly X-rated nursery rhyme chorus, and it does go on for a bit too

long.  It sounds like product from an above average improv.  The line "turn

that sucker out" would be recycled into one a Parliament's biggest top 40

hits.  "I'm Never Gonna Tell It" is a slow one that is a bit tame for

Funkadelic.  It's the best for last this time out with the final two cuts.

The title track represents this album's long trip out piece.  "Tales of Kidd

Funkadelic" recalls "Atmosphere" with it's weird goth rock organ, and is

accompanied by bongos and voices deep in the mix.  It could be a horror film

soundtrack, and if you're up for it, it might be the best cut on the record.

If you're not into that much strangeness then "How Do Yeaw View You?" is

probably the pick here.  It's another mid tempo number but is better than

the others on Tales as it's got a better groove and some fuzz guitar creeps

in.  It's good but it isn't a rouser.  Perhaps they were saving the "A"

material for the step up to a major label which followed.

HARDCORE JOLLIES

1976 - Warner Brothers BS-2973

[], [], [], []

Comin' Round the Mountain / Smokey / If You Got Funk, You Got Style /

Hardcore Jollies / Soul Mate / Cosmic Slop / You Scared the Lovin' Out of Me

/ Adolescent Funk

The first of the Warner Brothers records is the last with the feel of the

old Funkadelic.  Michael Hampton steps in with full responsibility for lead

guitar duties, and the result is the last P-Funk album of any kind with some

real crunch to it.  While more refined than the early acid groove disks,

this album rocks pretty hard in many places.  It's also one of their overall

best and most consistent efforts.  "Comin' Round the Mountain" begins with a

simple groove but quickly melts into passages of heavy rock guitar and a

pyro-solo ending.  Things settle down a bit with a couple of bottom heavy

soul numbers that keep you grooving, complete with tricky picking in the

background.  Neither "Smokey" nor "If You Got Funk..." rave up like some of

the other cuts, but both are excellent, and are tight and groovy without

getting monotonous.  "Hardcore Jollies" is Hampton's declaration of

independence - his "Maggot Brain".  This is one intense sonic bombast in

which the kid demonstrates that he's up to the task of handling Funkadelic's

roar.  A simple organ intro fools the listener as to the electric attack

that quickly comes .  This instrumental is amongst the top few heaviest cuts

on any of the records, however it follows a more structured approach than

some of the "Maggot Brain" era stuff.  There's a definite sectioning between

verse/bridge/chorus, with Hampton's lead filling in where the vocals might

have been.  "Soul Mate" returns to the more traditional soul sound of tracks

two and three, before the young guitarist steps back up to prove his chops.

The re-recording of "Cosmic Slop" is however the one minor misfire on this

record.  While a great performance, it's still a half a step behind the

original interpretation, but that leaves this track infinitely more

listenable than the majority of the dreck out there.  "You Sacred the Lovin'

Out of Me" is my favorite song of the eight, and that may have something to

do with it being the weirdest.  Not a balls out rocker, but a trippy

almost-ballad carried buy the intermittent reoccurrence of a distorto

keyboard playing an Indian belly dancer riff.  "Adolescent Funk" closes the

album with a voiceless track featuring keyboard doodlings, geetahr pickun,

and machine gun sounds, and with more riddum than most experimental album

enders in the Funkadelic universe.  There's not a bad song on the record,

and with the exception of a few select compositions to come, Hardcore

Jollies is a swan song for the old hardcore rock elements of the band.

After a short hiatus they would come back with three more albums that more

resemble a rawer Parliament in style.

ONE NATION UNDER A GROOVE

1978 - Warner Brothers BS-3209

[], [], [], []

One Nation Under a Groove / Groovallegiance / Who Says a Funk Band Can't

Play Rock?! / Promentalshitbackwashpsychosis Enema Squad (The Doo Doo

Chasers) / Into You / Cholly (Funk Getting Ready to Roll!) / SPECIAL 7"

BONUS EP: Lunchmeataphobia (Think! It Ain't Illegal Yet!) / P.E.

Squad-Doodoo Chasers ("Going All-The-Way Off" Instrumental Version) / Maggot

Brain (live)

Some call this the pinnacle of the empire of the Parliafunkadelicment thang.

It's definitely the album with the most uplifting message and one with a

statement of purpose.  That purpose is pledging groovallegiance to the

united funk of Funkadelica, and promising the funk, the whole funk, and

nothing but the funk.  Pedro Bell's cover depicts Clinton's Space Maggoteers

planting the R&B (that's rhythm and business!) flag atop the earth.  The

Funkadleic moniker was almost buried while George and the gang focused in on

Parliament, but was revitalized for this concept album in music if not in

lyrics.  The opening two tracks are 14:33 minutes of danceable fun that

never wear down and always stay exciting.  The extended groove thing works

better with "One Nation Under a Groove" and "Groovalleginace" than an any of

their other attempts, over all of the records discussed here.  After

settling in with those two tracks, you're jolted back out with a blast

recalling the old days in "Who Says a Funk Band Can't Play Rock?!".  Not me,

especially this funk band, and neither will anyone else who hears this.  The

song is similar to "Get Off Your Ass and Jam", with a rock steady beat

backing some simple harmonious vocalizing and full blown, cranked up, guitar

worshipping frenzy throughout.  It's one of their most sonically powerful

tunes.  "P.E. Squad" slips back into a soulful beat while George leads the

gang in a scatological discussion which equates loud mouthed pseudo

intellectualism with a bowel movement.  After all, many of those with

"mental diarrhea" do seem to be "talking shit a mile a minute".  A subtle

but exciting lead comes in and out, which is expanded upon in the

instrumental version contained as a bonus track.  "Into You" has a slower,

soul ballad approach while "Cholly" goes somewhere altogether different

than the rest of the record.  That place is one which is inhabited not only

by some of the then current Parliament boogie hits, but also by the bass

driven, story telling tracks found on the first Funkadelic release.  It's a

great dance song which was designed to be the club hit from this collection.

The primary tracks on One Nation are all excellent, and present a balance of

well produced styles throughout.  When this LP was being prepared Clinton

wanted it to be a double, with the second record being made up entirely of

the more raw, exploratory compositions which usually sneak onto Funkadelic

records one or two at a time.  Warner Brothers wouldn't go for it, and thus

Clinton self financed a three song 7" EP to be included with each copy.  The

music on the insert definitely stands out from the rest of the record, in

that it's all much less clean and crafted than the material on the 12" disk.

"Lunchmeataphobia" contains a monster riff which gives way to psycho noise

caterwauling over chants of "Think! It Ain't Illegal Yet!".  The above

mentioned "P.E. Squad" instrumental version allows for the guitar lead to be

appreciated to it's fullest extent.  And finally Hampton proves his

Hazelness once again with a live version of the wordless freak anthem

"Maggot Brain".  Being live, this version isn't quite as introspective as

the original, but the more pronounced bass and drum backing give it a thump

that makes it the preferred interpretation on occasion.  Overall this is an

excellent demonstration of an ability to make a commercial record which

moves away from free for all freakouts, yet still maintains a solid rock and

roll perspective.  George felt that it had to be done, and who better to

pull it off than Funkadelic.  Reissues tack the bonus EP onto the album

itself.

 

UNCLE JAM WANTS YOU

1979 - Warner Brothers BSK-3371

[], []

Freak of the Week / (not just) Knee Deep / Uncle Jam / Field Maneuvers

/ Holly Wants to Go to California / Foot Soldiers (Star-Spangled

Funky)

"Eh Butt-Head...Does this suck?"

"Uhhhhhh, well it's got George Clinton, that's cool"

With the success achieved in utilizing Funkadelic to create a record with a

specialized style on "One Nation Under a Groove", the idea was to carry on

with that process to show that a disco album with integrity was possible.

They wished to "rescue dance music from the blahs" as the cover slogan says.

It almost worked, but the extended funky dance tunes this time out don't

have the style of those on One Nation.  "Freak of the Week" and "(not just)

Knee Deep" merge together over the whole first side much like "One Nation

Under a Groove" and "Groovallegiance" did, but there isn't enough zip in

them, like in the previous two, to justify their length. "Knee Deep" was

written by George Clinton Jr.  It isn't too bad and its got a catchy chorus,

but it is a bit overextended.  "Uncle Jam" comes closer though.  It carries

not only a good tune, but also a call for unity under the funk that is in

line with the theme of the preceding album.  It's the only really good thing

here, and it was co-written by Bootsy, Gary Shider and Bernie Worrell along

with Clinton Sr.  All of the other tracks share composition credit with

outside writers.  With Bootsy's and Shider's names on "Uncle Jam", it's no

wonder that the most interesting bass and guitar lines on the album are

found on it.  "Field Maneuvers" is an instrumental which provides the only

hint of old style wild guitar, but even here the soul-o's are confined to

a sound bordering on seventies AOR.  "Holly Wants to Go to California" has

piano accompanied crooning which doesn't work, and "Foot Soldiers" doesn't

really end the record on a high note.  It's a mostly instrumental military

style marching song which tries to maintain the theme of recruitment into

Uncle Jam's army.  Pedro Bell's cover art even gets relegated to the inside

of the gatefold, thus the cover isn't his for the only time since America

Eats It's Young.

THE ELECTRIC SPANKING OF WAR BABIES

1980 - Warner Brothers 3BSK-482

[], []

The Electric Spanking of War Babies / Electro-Cuties / Funk Get's Stronger

(Part I) / Brettino's Bounce / Funk Gets Stronger (Killer Millimeter Longer

Version) / She Loves You / Shockwaves / Oh, I / Icka Prick

The last LP under the Funkadelic label (although a 12" came out in 1991

carrying it) attempts to move away from disco, and to produce a sound that

merges both the rhythmic and the rockin' paths followed previously.  In

entering into the eighties they came up with a good overall sound, but the

songs are kind of nondescript in areas and can tend to linger too long.  The

lead off is a decent enough, quirky, new-wavish dance floor track complete

with that techno drum sound.  "Electro-Cuties" is a straight funker with a

polyrhythmic approach, while "Funk Get's Stronger" starts with a good heavy

groove, but gets stuck in it as the track seems to carry on without much

variation; guest vocals: Sly Stone.  "Brettino's Bounce" is a short segment

of sound effects, bongos, and jungle drums occupying time before they get

back to "Funk Get's Stronger" in a rawer reprise which now includes horns.

"She Loves You" is a few seconds of joke where a chorus of "We Love You,

Yeah, Yeah, Yeah" ala The Beatles is heard.  The best stuff here is tucked

near the end in "Shockwaves", a good Funkadelic take on reggae complete with

imitation Jamaican singing, and "Oh, I" which is the one song on

Electric Spanking which captures that great Funkadelic energy.  It moves

along at a good tempo while a guitar lead burns away incessantly in the

background throughout.  This one flashback to the rock and roll past is the

only place here where anything really breaks loose.  "Icka Prick" begins by

stating "We're gonna be nasty this time", and that they are in traditional

LP closing style.  It's a rude discussion concerning genitalia, over weirdo

noises punctuated by occasional metal riffs.  Overall this record is OK, but

with six outstanding, foolproof choices, wait on adding it to your

collection until your truly committed.  Things were then beginning to

crumble in the P-Funk universe, and after this alteration of musical course

from Funkadelic, and a similar one from Parliament on the Trombibulation

album, it fell apart.  The eighties were spotty, with several uneven George

Clinton albums, before rap sampling encouraged the crew to get back together

regularly as the P-Funk All-stars in the late eighties and on into the

nineties.

additional Funkadelic releases:

Funkadelic's Greatest Hits - Westbound 1004 (1975)

The Best of the Early Years - Westbound 303 (1977)

Connections And Disconnections - LAX (1981); A phony Funkadelic album made

  by three of the original Parliaments, Fuzzy Haskins, Grady Thomas, and 

  Calvin Simon, without Clinton or the band.

Music For Your Mother - Westbound 1111 (1993); A double LP made of recordings

  from singles, there are thus many alternative takes and B sides.

Live In The Rockies - a boot from a 1976 show

The Original KISS Rate Their Own Records - Read What the World's Richest

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cartoon Characters Think of Themselves

--------------------------------------

The original members of KISS rate their own records!  The scale was from one

to five, and each member only rated albums on which he performed.  In an few

instances a member would say something like "three or four", so in this case

the response is 3/4.  A response of "NA" means "not applicable", indicating

that that person wasn't in the group for that recording.  In the few cases

where a rating wasn't given, the space is left blank.  GS = Gene Simmons, PS

= Paul Stanley, AF = Ace Frehly, and PC = Politically Correct, uh I mean

Peter Criss (but you're no knuckle head - you knew this!)  This info was

lifted from the October 15, 1993 issue of Goldmine.  RSAG = Rolling Stone

Album Guide (1992 edition), and is given for comparison with what some

critic thinks.

                           GS        PS        AF        PC      RSAG

                           --        --        --        --      ----

Kiss                       3         5         5         5        3

Hotter Than Hell           3         3         3.5       3        2

Dressed To Kill            2.5       3.5       4         2/3      3

Alive!                     4         5         5         5        3.5

Destroyer                  4.5       5                   5        3

Rock and Roll Over         3         5         4         4        2

Love Gun                   3         4.5/5     4         4        2

Double Platinum                      2         3         3        2

Alive II                   3         4.5       4         5        2

SOLO ALBUMS:

Gene Simmons               1         2         3         5        1

Paul Stanley               2         5         5         5        1

Ace Frehley                3         3         5         5        2

Peter Criss                0         0         3         5        1

Dynasty                    2         2/3       3.5       3        2

Unmasked                   1         1         3.5       NA       1

The Elder                  0         ?         2         NA       2.5

Killers                    1         1/2       NA        NA       NA

Creatures Of the Night     4.5       5         NA        NA       1

Lick It Up                 2         4         NA        NA       1

Animalize                  2         4         NA        NA       1

Asylum                     2         3         NA        NA       2

Crazy Nights               2         3         NA        NA       1

Smashes Thrashes and Hits  1         5         NA        NA       3.5

Hot In the Shade           2                   NA        NA       1

Revenge                    4.5       5         NA        NA

Alive III                            5         NA        NA

The December 1993 issue of the Tower Records freebie magazine Pulse reports

that there's a new Kiss tribute album (not Hard To Believe) for which Gene

Simmons is soliciting bands.  It is to be called Kiss My Ass.  Already

confirmed are: Lenny Kravitz and Stevie Wonder - "Deuce" (but can they

surpass the Redd Kross or 69 Eyes covers?), Garth Brooks - "Hard Luck

Woman", Choad (I mean Toad) The Wet Sprocket - "Rock and Roll All Night" (I

saw this band play their first ever show at a place called Pat's Grass Shack

in Goleta, CA, in September or October 1986.  I didn't like them then and I

don't like them now), Nine Inch Nails - "Love Gun", Extreme - "Strutter",

Megadeth - "Strange Ways", Anthrax - "She", Lemonheads - "Plaster Caster",

and Galactic Cowboy - "Black Cowboy".  Yet to be confirmed possibilities

include Dinosaur Jr. (who would have to be the highlight), Naughty By

Nature, Axl Rose, Bell Biv Devoe (who would have to produce the strangest

cut), Soundgarden, Alice In Chains, Soul Asylum, House Of Pain,
and Ice

Cube.  The idea of Wonder and Kravitz teaming up is intriguing to me.  Lenny

Kravitz is a guy who has some good ideas about what constitutes real rock

and roll but has troubles writing good songs.  Stevie Wonder on the other

hand is a master songwriter whose work can sometimes come out too wimpy.

There are possibilities here for something good.

REVIEWS - Zines, Books, Records, and Live Shows

------------------------------------------------

 

As this FUNHOUSE! is essentially a split issue with number four, the

following review section will focus on literature, while recorded material

will be covered next time.

Beginning with some new fanzines -

The long awaited third issue of ANSWER ME! has come out.  This most

ballsiest of zines continues its focus on the dark underbelly of society

with a "Doctor Death" Jack Kevorkian interview, articles on Al Sharpton,

Nambla, Russian serial killer Andrei Chikatilo, Mexican deformity comic

books, 100 spectacular suicides, a rant section, and tons of other fun. 130

pages for $5 (1st) or $4 (3rd) from Goad to Hell, 1608 N. Cahuenga Blvd.

#666, Hollywood, CA, 90028, 213-462-8252.  The incredibly dense BLACK TO

COMM has put out its 20th issue.  Like usual it's loaded with reviews,

articles, and commentary which favor the rock and roll of The Velvet

Underground, The Stooges, and everything which springs from them.  The

latest has 106 highly illustrated, small type filled pages.  Highlights are

interviews with Roky Erickson (13th Floor Elevators), Mick Farren (Pink

Fairies) and Adny Shernoff (Dictators) plus pieces on the New York Dolls,

Shadows of Knight, Lenny Kaye, Seeds, and Kim Fowley.  Highly entertaining

except for the reoccurring snotty political shots which appear throughout (we

know that you don't like Clinton Chris, but leave the silly cheap shots to

Rush Fathead).  $7.50 (ppd) from 714 Shady Ave., Sharon, PA, 16146.  Back

issues are available.  CULT MOVIES #8 maintains the regular appearance of

this mag which usually covers horror/exploitation films from the 50's and

60's.  Among the many features here are a Ray Dennis Steckler interview, a

Harry Novak interview (who's selling original posters from B.O.

International films), and stories on Vampira, the Coffin Joe films of Jose

Mojica Marins, Kenneth Anger, Stan Laurel, David Freidman on Hellavision

from his "Roadshow Rarities" series, and a new feature, Porn Queen

interviews - in this issue it's Jade East.  By the time this FUNHOUSE! was

completed, issue #9 of CULT MOVIES had been released.  This mag continues to

improve, and is moving past European Trash Cinema into the number two spot

(behind Psychotronic) among sleaze film zines.  This time they have a Bob

Cresse interview, Frank Henelotter speaking about discovering his "Sexy

Shockers from the Vaults" released by Something Weird, more Coffin Joe,

Hollywood Martian movies, Theda Bara, and alt.cult-movies regular

contributor David Milner with three pieces on Japanese monsters; an Ishiro

Honda interview, an Akira Ifukube interview, and a look at Japanese

monster fanzines.  $4.95 cover price from 6201 Sunset Blvd., Suite 152,

Hollywood, CA, 90028.  Some back issues available.  That great teller of

truth Zontar the Thing From Venus has issued his latest words of wisdom in

ZONTAR'S EJECTO-POD #4.  This collage of pictures and articles intended to

keep track of those would be purveyors of The New World Order is 30 pages of

the truth about Pat Robertson, George Bush, Bob Tilton, Larry Buchanan,

Rutger Hauer, Ivan Stang, and other fundamentalists.  $6.00 (ppd) from Jan

Johnson, 29 Darling St. #29, Boston, MA, 02120.  Also look into other Zontar

products such as Zontar The Mag From Venus, Zontower, and a subtitled tape

of the original cut of Godzilla (aka Gojira, 1954).  EUROPEAN TRASH CINEMA

v.2, n.8 keeps up Craig Ledbetter's exploration of the sleaziest cinematic

output from The Continent.  Here there is a lengthy analysis of Argento's

latest, Trauma, a Jean Rollin interview and filmography, a Brigitte Lahaie

interview and filmography, an analysis of Claude Chabrol films, and plenty

of reviews.  $6.00 (ppd) from PO Box 5367, Kingwood, TX, 77325.  FACTSHEET

FIVE #49 has Punk Rock Beth on the cover.  THE GIALLO PAGES is new from

England.  Its motto is "Exploitation All Italiana" and the debut has

interviews with Dario Argento, Lucio Fulci, Michele Soavi, and David

Warbeck, a profile of Edwige Fenech, and a remembrance of Marisa Mell.

Reviews fill out the 42 pages for 2.50 pounds (cover) from On-Line

Publishing, c/o 33 Maltby Road, Mansfield, Notts, NG18 3BN, England.

MONSTER! INTERNATIONAL #3 is highlighted by Horacio Higuchi's huge, highly

detailed, article on Brazilian fright film auteur Jose Mojica Marins.  This

is a timely piece in light of Something Weird Video's subtitling and release

of some of Marins' titles, beginning with four featuring his infamous Ze Do

Caixao ("Coffin Joe") character.  Also in this extremely well produced zine

are features on possession films, Franco's Attack of The Robots, and plenty

of reviews of works from The Philippines, Italy, Britain, and elsewhere.

$7.95 (ppd) for 68 dense pages with a slick specialized cover from Kronos

Publications, MPO Box 67, Oberlin, OH, 44074-0067.  Its sister publication,

the also excellent Highball, will have its second issue published as a

double with MONSTER! INTERNATIONAL #4.  NECRONOMICON is another British zine

to hit the scene recently that deals with horror and exploitation.  It's 58

slick pages with a multi colored cover, and largely consists of detailed

(3-5 pages with photos) reviews of all sort of Eurosploitation.  Amongst the

contents of #2 are Blood and Black Lace, Once Upon a Time in the West,

Cannibal Holocaust, Nekromantik 2, a Richard Stanley interview, and a

special feature on Vampire flicks.  #3 checks in with Deep Red and Inferno,

Mask of Satan (aka Black Sunday), Requiem for a Vampire, Vampyre Lesbos,

Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, Django and Django Strikes Again, The Torture

Chamber of Doctor Sadism, The Church, a Jorg Buttgereit interview and more.

Each is three pounds from Andy Black at 15 Jubilee Road, Newton Abbot,

Devon, TQ12 1LB, England.  With PSYCHOTRONIC VIDEO #16 the mag is now up to

80 pages and a $4.00 cover price (plus $1.50 postage by mail).  All the

usual great features such as the extensive letters pages, >>many<< reviews

of videos, music, zines, and books, and the obits, are joined this time by

an interview with Michael "Pluto" Berryman, a Curtis Harrington interview, a

Bob Clark interview, and a Jeff Morrow interview.  PSYCHOTRONIC is still the

king!  Write them at 3309 Rt. 97, Narrowsburg, NY, 12764-6126,

fax:914-252-3905.  Most all back issues are still available.  TRASH

COMPACTOR v.2, #6 is their blaxploitation issue.  It's also got a John

Ashley interview and some reviews.  $3.75 plus $1.00 postage for 42 pages

from 253 College St. Suite #108, Toronto, Canada, M5T 1R5, but beware as I

tried to order a back issue and couldn't get them to cough it up.  Any

Misfits fans out there?  Well if you are you >>need<< UGLY THINGS #12 as it

has the best article ever written about the monster punks.  A long interview

with Jerry Only along with many photos and other items from his personal

collection help to tell their story from beginning to end.  The zine covers

"60's/ 70's/80's punks", and so this issue also has The Downliners Sect,

Pretty Things, Los Cheyenes, The Barrier, Dave Wendels, and some reviews.

Lots of good reading over the 64 pages for $6.00 (ppd) from 405 W.

Washington St. #237, San Diego, CA, 92103.

books -

Apocalypse Culture: Expanded and Revised ed. by Adam Parfrey; Fereal House,

1987,1990, $12.95 (softcover), 362pp, ISBN: 0-922915-05-9 

This is a perverse collection of essays from the nattering nabobs of

negativism, and I don't mean the popular press.  It is a much larger version

of editor Parfrey's 1987 compendium, with expanded versions of items from

the original book, as well as some deletions.  It also contains a good deal

of new material.  The articles range from crackpot theories to intense

journalism documenting the ugly underbelly of society - but who is to say

which are which.  The various pieces which make up Apocalypse Culture look

at the fringe elements which are theoretically serving to undermine, and

contribute to the eventual fall of, the popular order.  They explore people

and ideas which creep through the crevices of our world and go undocumented

or unnoticed by the wider populace.  The book is divided into two sections,

"Apocalypse" Theologies" and "The Invisible War".  The former surveys the

philosophies and theologies of some death leaning movements, while the

latter documents some actual fallout from these movements.  There is a sort

of cause and effect structure between the first and second parts of the

compilation.  Some of the pieces are interesting, some are disgusting, and

all are way out of the mainstream.  Among the philosophies investigated are

those of The Abraxas Foundation, G.G. Allin (RIP), The Red Brigades, Mel

Lyman, a necrophile, and The Process Church of the Final Judgment (which I

found particularly interesting).  Exposes cover The Christian Right's

adopting Zionism as a means to Armageddon and The Second Coming, a history

of the theory of eugenics and those who espoused it, and beliefs concerning

secret conspiracies to commit genocide against Black Americans.  The various

authors approach their work from differing angles; some are advocates, some

are critics, and some just deliver the facts objectively.  A few articles

are simply reprints of original musings by their subjects, such as those of

Anton La Vey and Elijah Muhummad.  Not recommended for the easily obsessed

or depressed.

Broken Mirrors/Broken Minds: The Dark Dreams of Dario Argento by Maitland

MacDonagh; Sun Tavern Fields (UK), 1991, 9.95 pounds (softcover), 293pp,

ISBN: 0-9517012-4-X 

The most analytical and detailed look at the cinema of Dario Argento yet.

There has been much praise for Argento's heavily crafted thrillers in the

pages of horror mags and fanzines from purely the perspective of them as

fright films, but this book and Douglas E. Winter's "Opera of Violence: The

Films of Dario Argento" chapter in Cut!: Horror Writers on Horror Film

(1992, Berkley) are the only works in English that I've come across which

discuss the depth of, and careful detail applied to, Argento's productions.

(At least until FUNHOUSE! #4 that is!)  To look at Argento's films as just

well made slasher or horror films is a mistake, as he carefully constructs

each scene to an extent that few thriller directors do.  The author explores

subtexts utilized in the movies which play on the viewer's inherent

discomforts, and preconceived notions, in realms of the human psyche, such

as the nightmare experience and sex and gender confusion.  Author Maitland

MacDonagh developed this book out of her masters thesis written at Columbia

University.  Her writing analyzes Argento's creation of multi layered films

which utilize camera movements, color, sound, and especially editing through

the juxtaposition of scenes and images, to frighten on levels beyond

ephemeral shock.  Broken Mirrors is more dense in its prose than is common

in books discussing genre filmmakers.  It explores the underlying meanings

of on screen images in some detail, and thus it often slips into filmic

language.  The depth of her study is justified by the depth of Argento's

work however.  This book is recommend more for hardcore Argentophiles;

novices are encouraged to view the films (maybe for a second time) prior to

digging in, so that they're not lost in trying to recall the often times

twisted story lines while exploring the subtexts.  Broken Mirrors is also

valuable for its extensive filmography and bibliography, for the author's

discussion of influences on the director's style by such predecessors as

Alfred Hitchcock and Mario Bava, and for the inclusion of information on

Argento as producer to such disciples as Luigi Cozzi, Michele Soavi, and

Lamberto Bava.  An interview by the author with her subject is appended as

well.

>From the Velvets to the Voidoids: A Pre-Punk History for a Post-Punk World

by Clinton Heylin; Penguin, 1993, $14.00 (softcover), 384pp, ISBN:

0-14-017970-4 

England's Dreaming: Anarchy, Sex Pistols, Punk Rock, and Beyond by Jon

Savage; St. Martin's Press, 1992, $16.95 (softcover), 602pp, ISBN: 

0-312-08774-8  

It's great that these two histories were published so close together, as

there is much to be said for reading them back to back.  From The Velvets To

The Voidoids chronicles the formation of the US punk scene, making (the

correct in my mind) argument that the roots of punk rock are distinctly

American, and that they follow a rather linear progression which runs along

the lines of Velvet Underground - MC5 - Stooges - Modern Lovers - New York

Dolls - Dictators, and then branches into the subsequent New York and

Cleveland scenes encompassing such groups as The Ramones, Pere Ubu, The Dead

Boys, The Heartbreakers, Rocket from the Tombs, The Electric Eels, and The

Voidoids.  Such non-punk but related bands as Blondie, Talking Heads, and

Television are also given plenty of attention.  The book is well written, as

it lays out its theory as to the American origins of punk rock and the linear

progression of the style in this country in the beginning, and then attempts

to support the theory by tracing the histories, and describing the music, of

the bands mentioned above.  It's interesting throughout, and some very

worthwhile information is provided for anyone into in any of these bands, as

well as for anyone who wishes to get a sense of the nature of the

development of the subunderground and what linkages occurred between the

groups.  The best elements are the detailed accounts of the rise and fall of

both The New York Dolls and Television, and the attention paid to the

Cleveland seventies scene which gave rise to Pere Ubu and The Dead Boys.

The latter has only been very sparsely covered in the past.  The book's draw

backs lie in the author's allowing too many of his personal biases to slip

into the story.  He has a definite preference for the more "arty" creators

of the music over the balls out rockers, and thus heaps extra praise on

Television, Pere Ubu, and Talking Heads, while sometimes taking a derisive

tone with the hard rock party music of The Dictators and The Dead Boys.

It's well worth reading for both fans and the unfamiliar alike.

The main difference between the English and American punk scenes of the

seventies was that in the UK punk rock was much more of a social phenomena,

while in America the driving force was almost entirely musical.  Due to the

nature of the British music scene, their music press, and the social

conditions of the time, punk quickly developed into a widely known and

popular segment of the culture, which brought about radio air play and

large record sales.  America's reactionary entertainment moguls however

wrote punk off as worthless from the start.  With almost all of the

mainstream music and news press being negative, and with a complete

commercial radio blackout excluding a few select exceptions, punk was always

something which was considered disgusting and useless.  England's Dreaming

is primarily a Sex Pistols biography, but in the context of their story, the

culture which surrounded them at the time and the careers of contemporaries

such as The Clash, The Buzzcocks, and The Damned are given attention.  Author

Jon Savage writes from the perspective of someone who was there, and in a

slightly excessive move attempts to prove his first hand credentials by

reprinting entries he made into his own journal.  Despite this, the birth of

English punk is very well described and the Sex Pistol's story in particular

is covered in great detail, from the youth of Malcom McLaren to their

disintegration at Winterland.  If I have a complaint with this book it's

with the rather generous credit the author gives to The Sex Pistols as THE

creators and greatest practitioners of punk.  It is certainly true that the

notoriety of English punk and its explosion in popularity there can be

traced with the rise of The Pistols.  Other groups, especially The Clash

and The Buzzcocks who created amazingly great music, definitely rode on 

their coattails to fame.  But Savage's rejection of punk rock music as an

American creation is specious.  He seems to put forth the notion that it was

English in general, and Sex Pistolian in particular, in origin.  This goes

against accounts in the book as to the major influence on McLaren of The New

York Dolls, who he managed for a short stint when their demise was nearly

complete.  In fact Steve Jones' Les Paul guitar was the one which Sylvain

Sylvain played in The Dolls, procured for him by McLaren.  The fact that The

Sex Pistols chose songs by The Stooges ("No Fun") and The Modern Lovers

("Roadrunner") to cover isn't even given a mention.  A slightly lesser

complaint is the author's dismissal of the music of The Damned, but that's

my own personal bias.  Reading both of these books consecutively (I

recommend Velvets first) will provide a better history of pre Black Flag/

Dead Kennedies punk rock than can be had anywhere else.  Each is excellently

researched and explores the evolution and roots of the style, as well as

telling the stories of the bands.  Both also have the added value of

carrying useful discographies, with critical evaluations and coverage of

some of the better bootleg material.

The New Poverty Row: Independent Filmmakers as Distributors by Fred Olen

Ray; McFarland, 1991, $27.95 (hardcover, library bound), 240pp, ISBN:

0-89950-628-3 

Fred Olen Ray is himself working today as one the exceedingly rare people

whom his book addresses, a completely independent filmmaker.  Ray is an

historian of exploitation cinema, in addition to being a producer/director in

that sordid area, and he applies his knowledge to chronicling the careers of

some of his predecessors, as well as himself.  Like most McFarland books,

this was written as a reference work as much as a story, and it is packed

with filmographies for a select group of entrepreneurs and their companies

from the past 35 or so years.  The personalities discussed are those who

served as individual creative forces, and had a strong influence themselves

in guiding the direction of their companies.  Chapters of the book look at

Jerry Warren and Associated Distribution Productions, Roger Corman and

Filmgroup, Kane W. Lynn and Hemisphere Pictures, David L. Hewitt and

American General Pictures, Sam Sherman and Independent-International

Pictures, Lawrence H. Woolner and Dimension Pictures, and Fred Olen Ray and

American Independent Productions.  The real value for me in the book is in

having a source for the complete output, and descriptions of that output,

from these producers of some of the more interesting psychotronic material

from the great era when American drive in cinema was at its peak.

Interviews and anecdotes do provide for fun reading as well, particularly

with regards to how some of the films were managed to be made.  Highlights

as far as my tastes are concerned are the details behind Hemisphere's gore

and softcore productions of the sixties and seventies, which were mostly

made in The Philippines, and which include the classic Blood Series (THE

BLOOD DRINKERS [1966], BRIDES OF BLOOD [1968], BLOOD FIEND [1968], MAD

DOCTOR OF BLOOD ISLAND [1969], BLOOD CREATURE [1969], BLOOD DEMON [1970],

BEAST OF BLOOD [1970] and BRAIN OF BLOOD [1971]), and Independent-

Internationals work, especially with legendary badfilm director Al Adamson

(SATAN'S SADISTS [1969], HORROR OF THE BLOOD MONSTERS [1970], HELL'S BLOODY

DEVILS [1970], BLOOD OF GHASTLY HORROR [1971], FIVE BLOODY GRAVES [1971],

DRACULA VS. FRANKENSTEIN [1972], and ANGELS WILD WOMEN [1972]).

Private Parts by Howard Stern; Simon and Schuster, 1993, $23.00 (hardcover),

447pp, ISBN:0-671-88016-0 

If you've listened to Stern then you fall into one of two categories,

someone who likes him or someone who likes him and won't admit it.  Stern is

a funny guy, but his greatest appeal is his shameless honesty; he's not

afraid to say exactly what he thinks about someone or something.  That may

seem to be a recipe for obnoxiousness, and to some extent it is, but it

works with Stern as he applies his honesty equally to himself.  People who

accuse him of the various -isms need to stop and realize that he's no

different than anybody else, especially themselves, he just admits his

opinions, his prejudices, and his shortcomings freely for all to hear.  In

Private Parts what you get is an unexpurgated version of the radio and TV

shows.  With a semi-biographical format, each individual chapter is devoted

to a different aspect of Howard's career, past or present.  Fellow

employees, former bosses, competing radio personalities, and especially

select celebrities who have crossed paths with Howard are freely skewered.

Chevy Chase, whose talk show bomb was predicted in the text to fail quickly

and miserably before it even went an the air, Roseanne and Tom (Yoko)

Arnold, Arsenio (aka Asskissio) Hall, and Kathy Lee Gifford are amongst the

biggest recipients.  Who could defend that deserving group of pompous

characters?.  While Howard is always a complete cynic, the book is far from

all negative.  He's got plenty of praise for those entertainers whom he

likes.  There are also a number of not only funny but interesting stories,

such as events in Howard's awkward youth in a black neighborhood on Long

Island, the college years, early radio at Boston University, in Hartford,

Detroit, and Washington DC, and at NBC New York from which he was fired, and

particularly regarding the FCC vendetta against him.  The book is heavily

illustrated, and the photos are almost as entertaining as the text.  See just

how much of cheeseball Howard was with a shorter permed hairdo and huge

mustache in the mid-eighties.  Long time fans will know a lot of the stories

already but will enjoy the more detailed versions, while those outside of

any of the radio markets will see what it is that their local governments

and the FCC feel that they need to be protected from.  There are three

chapters on lesbians.

Ramones: An American Band by Jim Bessman (in association with the Ramones);

St. Martin's Press, 1993, $14.95 (softcover), 202pp, ISBN: 0-312-09369-1 

The Ramones stand as one of the greatest all time rock and roll bands, and

their longevity is a tribute to their staying power with their fans.  With a

dedicated following which some might try to label "cult", it is surprising

that it took this long for someone to publish a book on them.  We seem to

get three to four new Sex Pistols volumes annually, and they were a lesser

band whose story covers about two years time.  It seems that all those

Rolling Stone styled rock critics who rejected the Pistols for the first ten

years following the release of "Anarchy in the UK" are now trying to show

their versatility of tastes by praising the group, glossing over the fact

that they were rejected as snotty, atonal noisemakers not on a par with true

"artists" such as Bob Segar, The Eagles, or Jackson Browne when they were

happening.  This Sex Pistol revisionism by the old boy network seems to have

begun with Rolling Stoned's hypocritical "best of" list, published upon

their twentieth anniversary in 1987.  Some of these same critics are also

now trying to give The Ramones their due, but most seem to feel that jumping

onto the Sex Pistols bandwagon is enough to prove that they can relate to

punk rock.  John Savage in England's Dreaming finally told the Pistol's

story in a coherent manner, with a critical evaluation and description of

them in the context of the social scene from which they emerged, rendering

unnecessary all of the knock off fan mag styled publication which preceded

it.  Unfortunately, Ramones: An American Band falls more into the latter

category than the former.  Author Jim Bessman is too enamored with the

group, and too friendly with them, to create something which doesn't come

across as cheerleading.  As a fan rather than a writer, his prose comes off

as simplistic and amateurish to boot.  A great deal of the text is spent

going over how innovative and important The Ramones are in the greater

context of rock music, and how they were unfairly rejected by an

establishment who couldn't see the raw pop energy of such radio ready tunes

as "Sheena is a Punk Rocker" or "Rockaway Beach" (sentiments that I agree

with).  However the editorializing does get repetitive.  The book is far

from without value however, as the author's closeness to the group allowed

for the acquisition of many interesting interviews and photos, and the

Ramones history as chronicled here provides for some entertaining reading.

There are not many post CBGB's era accounts of the band's activities

available.  Segments which I particularly enjoyed tell of the recording

sessions with Phil Spector for End of the Century, and the comings and

goings of Dee Dee, Marky, Richie, and CJ Ramone.  There is also an appendix

listing every show that the headbangers ever played, which was a fun device

for recalling some of the blasts I've had at their gigs.  My most memorable

experience was with Black Flag and the Minutemen at the Hollywood Palladium

in November 1984, in which a full scale police riot followed.  The whole

world should be familiar with LAPD tactics these days so no more needs to

be said.  The unobjective nature of the writing and the lack of digging any

deeper into The Ramones or American punk scenes render this one valuable for

fans only.

Television Horror Movie Hosts: 68 Vampires, Mad Scientists and Other

Denizens of the Late-Night Airwaves Examined and Interviewed by Elena M.

Watson; McFarland, 1991, $29.95 (hardcover, library bound), 256pp, ISBN:

0-89950-570-8 

This is another McFarland publication, and again it's designed to be

primarily useful as a reference.  Thus it's a book that you probably won't

read from front to back at one time, but it is invaluable if you need the

scoop on something specific contained within.  The goofy characters who

popped up on local television stations around the country from the fifties

on into the eighties are an artifact of the days before infomercials and

made for TV movies replaced the great and not so great films of the past on

the airwaves.  Just about every metropolitan area had at least one crazy who

would dress up as a vampire, ghoul, or mad scientist and hang out in a

haunted house, cave, or laboratory, while engaging in wacky stunts during

the breaks in showings of monster movies shown on TV.  The author has

gathered up information on the careers of most every movie host who appeared

in a city of at least moderate size throughout the US.  After an

introduction which sums up the origins of the phenomena in Los Angeles'

Vampira and the Universal packaging for TV of their classic horror films

under the Shock! label, the book dives into chapters covering each host.

How the character was developed, his or her gimmicks, stunts, and

personality, the station that he or she appeared on, and their years on the

air are given in each case.  Many chapters contain interviews with their

subjects as well, and most have photos.  A ghoulography lists film and

record appearances when applicable.  The creatures included range from older

heavyweights like Zacherley in Philadelphia and New York, Ghoulardi in

Cleveland, and Morgus the Magnificent in New Orleans, to the more obscure

likes of Sir Cecil Creape in Nashville and Dr. Paul Bearer in St.

Petersburg, to today's nationally known figures Elvira and Grandpa Al Lewis.

68 fiends are covered in total, and if you're is interested in any or all of

them there aren't many other information sources to turn to.  If anyone

expresses an interest I could list them all by city in a future issue of

FUNHOUSE!

EOF