After a passionate discussion of SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD, Dan Persons and Steve Biodrowski leave the recorder running as they delve deeply into the minutia of horror, fantasy, and science fiction. This week focuses on films that recycle plots and/or footage to create alternate versions and/or whole new movies:
THE EXORCIST: THE BEGINNING and DOMINION: PREQUEL TO THE EXORCIST
Digging for GOLD, the 1934 German science-fiction film cannibalized for the final act of the low-budget 1953 sci-fi flick THE MAGNETIC MONSTER
SUPERMAN II: The Donner Cut on DVD
Also, the RiffTrax version of CARNIVAL OF SOULS, Cinematic Titanic, and listener mail on the joys of Mario Bava and the wisdom of target release dates .
No new genre films hit theatres this weekend, but fear not: Dan Persons, Lawrence French, and Steve Biodrowski once again rev of the time machine and take you five decades into the past, for a look at one of the greatest horror films of all time, director Mario Bava’s masterpiece of black-and-white Gothic horror, BLACK SUNDAY (a.k.a. THE MASK OF SATAN, 1960), starring the Queen of Horror, Barbara Steele. It’s all part of Cinefantastique’s on-going celebration of 1960’s Horror, Fantasy & Science Fiction Films. Also on the menu: a weekly round-up of news, upcoming events, and home video releases.
Although THE VAMPIRE AND THE BALLERINA (originally L’amanti del Vampiro [“The Vampire’s Lover]) is certainly not the most important continental European or even Italian horror film made in 1960, it is nevertheless of significance for a number of reasons. In the first place, it marks the directorial debut of Renato Polselli. Polselli is one of the more intriguing and under-examined figures in European cinefantastique. A philosophy graduate whose films express a distinctive, personal take on psychology, sexuality and morality, striving for freedom from convention and hypocrisy, he continually explored and pushed the boundaries of acceptability.
Though THE VAMPIRE AND THE BALLERINA is relatively tame today, it nevertheless part of a continuum that saw Polselli gravitate towards ever weirder and wilder reaches of erotic and even outright pornographic horror over the next two decades. This is apparent from the fact that the film, like many of the director’s later works, suffered from distribution difficulties, not being released in Italy until 1962. Unfortunately by this time, THE VAMPIRE AND THE BALLERINA’s impact was inevitably diluted, given that both Mario Bava’s BLACK SUNDAY and Piero Regnoli’s (decidedly similar) THE PLAYGIRLS AND THE VAMPIRE had been released during the interim.
THE VAMPIRE AND THE BALLERINA also gave prolific screenwriter and occasional director Ernesto Gastaldi his first credit in both capacities, co-writing the script and serving as assistant director.
The film co-stars Walter Brandi. His period as a leading Italian genre actor was short-lived; his other key appearances are in PLAYGIRLS AND THE VAMPIRE (also 1960) and SLAUGHTER OF THE VAMPIRES (1962). He nevertheless maintained an association with the filone cinema, working as production manager on a number of Bruno Mattei’s productions in the 1980s, including the notorious zombie entry HELL OF THE LIVING DEAD. Much like BLACK SUNDAY and THE PLAYGIRLS AND THE VAMPIRE, THE VAMPIRE AND THE BALLERINA itself presents an early working through of the modern Gothic formula established a few years earlier Freda’s I VAMPIRI and Hammer’s CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN and HORROR OF DRACULA. Like Freda and Regnoli’s films, THE VAMPIRE AND THE BALLERINA is shot in black-and-white yet has a contemporary setting, in which the very existence of vampire seems an absurd, atavistic throwback.
This is accentuated in the opening sequences, which contrast the fatalistic world of the rural peasants (“Another victim; nothing can help her now”) with the scepticism of ballet-cum-burlesque dance troupe from the city (“Vampires seem so romantic in a way.” “Sure, you would think so, except that they only exist in movies.”)
Failing to heed the locals’ advice, some of the troupe stop at the supposedly deserted castle to take shelter from a storm. Predictably, they ignore the hints dropped by the Countess (“I don’t care for the world you live in – it is not my world”) and her striking resemblance to a 400 year old ancestress depicted in a portrait, precipitating the usual stalking and staking scenarios and confusions over who is what.
While things are eventually resolved in favour of the living over the undead and good over evil, Polselli nevertheless throws some provocative things our way.
Unlike the classic Dracula scenario, in which the Count is clearly dominant over his non-aristocratic female brides-slaves, THE VAMPIRE AND THE BALLERINA presents a cross-cutting of class and gender dynamics: Countess Alda was turned into a vampire by her servant, Herman, but seeks an escape from her unlife that he refuses to grant. Their relationship is thus characterised by a certain perversity born of mutual dependency, each alternately the master and slave and in need of the other’s recognition in a fundamentally sado-masochistic manner. (Hegel relevant to Italian schlock horror shock!) A reworking of the burial scene from VAMPYR, complete with coffins-eye view shot The director also gives us a reworking of the famous burial scene from Dreyer’s VAMPYR, complete with coffins-eye view shot. Besides being a powerful image in its own right, it also serves as a reminder of the longer tradition of the European fantastique cinema and the impossibility of clearly delineating the better of its products as either ‘art’ or ‘trash’.
Here it’s also about knowing how to make a ‘proper’ film, one that follows the rules, but of making a choice not to. Though THE VAMPIRE AND THE BALLERINA is certainly more classical and conventional than Polselli’s later work, the traces are there. The film can also thereby be related to wider developments in the cinema around 1960. This was, after all, also the time of Godard’s BREATHLESS, Antonioni’s L’AVVENTURA, and other more self-consciously modernist films. THE VAMPIRE AND THE BALLERINA (a.k.a. L’amanti del Vampiro [“The Vampire’s Lover], 1960). Directed by Renato Polselli. Written by Ernesto Gastaldi, Giuseppe Pellegrini, Renato Polselli. Cast, Helene Remy, Tina Gloriani, Water Brandi, Isarco Ravaioli, Gino Turini, Pier Ugo Gragnani, Brigitte Castor, Lut Maryk, Maria Luisa Rolando. [serialposts]
click to purchase Alan Jones – one time London correspondent for Cinefantastique – revealed on his Twitter account today that Italian filmmaker Dario Argento is planning to remake DRACULA in 3D. Filming, which will retain the original novel’s period setting, is supposed to start in January.
So, is this good news or bad news? After a dull patch in the ’90s, Argento has been doing reasonably good work in the new millennium, even if it’s not up to his glory days of the ’70s and early ’80s. Personally, I found SLEEPLESS, THE CARD PLAYER, DO YOU LIKE HITCHCOCK, and MOTHER OF TEARS all to be entertaining, especially the latter (which was vilified by Argento’s fan-base for not hewing close enough to its predecessors, SUSPIRIA and INFERNO).
However, I am leery of seeing Argento take on Bram Stoker’s immortal Count Dracula. The last time Argento got his hands on a classic movie monster, he made what could arguably be the worst movie of his career, 1998’s PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, which is a poorly considered mish-mash of Goth, gore, and goofy ideas (including a handsome Phantom played by Julian Sands and a ridiculous rat-catching vehicle that looks like a 50-cent ride you’d see in front of a supermarket).
Argento has done wonderful work in his chosen field, the violent Italian mystery-horror films known as giallos. And he managed the supernatural elements in the Three Mothers trilogy with style. But traditional Gothic Horror -and in 3D, no less? I imagine he will have some over-the-top fun with the visuals, but it will take more bloody stakes and vampire fangs comin’ at ya from the screen to justify another remake of this oft told story.
