Euro Cinema

All posts tagged Euro Cinema

YouTube, Sybil, God’s Gun and Shock Cinema!

Published August 30, 2019 by biggayhorrorfan

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YouTube has become a treasure trove for the cinema enthusiast. Full genre movies abound for free viewing on the service. This gift gives genre devotees an avenue to discover how certain entertainers have bypassed boundaries – working in the worlds of horror, European exploitation and comedy (among many others) throughout different phases of their careers.

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The recent discovery of God’s Gun, a unique Italian-Israeli western featuring an eclectic cast (Lee Van Cleef, Sybil Danning, Jack Palance, and Leif Garrett) is proof of this theory. All of these performers have worked in a number of categories. Danning, in particular, has worked in everything from Giallo projects (The Red Queen Kills Seven Times) to thrillers (Bluebeard, Nightkill) to big budget comedy (How to Beat the High Cost of Living) and action adventure franchises (The Three Musketeers, The Concorde…Airport ‘79). Nicely, I was lucky enough to have this eclectic performer share remembrances of her cinema adventures with me in an invaluable interview in this past winter’s edition of Shock Cinema magazine (http://shockcinemamagazine.com/ ). Anyone interested in what it was like to create in a world where Michael and Ilya Salkind hosted huge cast parties and also revels in discovering what it was like to manage life on faraway locations with ever dwindling funds will truly appreciate the celluloid memories that Danning shares in this seven and a half page feature. Back issues can be purchased at http://shockcinemamagazine.com/backissues.html.

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Her website is always active at http://www.sybildanning,net, as well…and until the next time, SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!

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Hell of a Gal: Rings of Fear

Published March 23, 2017 by biggayhorrorfan

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(Hell of a Gal explores the films of the ever luscious Euro Vixen Helga Liné.)

The radiant Helga Liné has over 130 credits on her resume. If all of the alternative titles of Rings of Fear, a mid career giallo, were counted among those credentials, she would have quite a number more. Known, alternatively,  as Red Rings of Fear (or Enigma Rosso), Trauma and Virgin Terror, this final entry in an unofficial Italian film series known as the Schoolgirl Trilogy, also found Liné portraying a totally sympathetic character, something that she was rarely given a chance to do.

Helga VK 4As Mrs. Russo, the anguished mother of the film’s first victim, Liné is given just a couple scenes here, but she provides plenty of understated sorrow and maternal strife in them. She also shares a nice connection with fellow Euro superstars Fabio Testi (What Have They Done to Solange, Four of the Apocalypse), as the detective investigating the case, and Nicoletta Elmi (Deep Red, Demons), who plays her youngest, incredibly inquisitive daughter. In fact, her best moments come as she, thoughtfully and quietly, answers Testi’s Di Salvo as he questions her after the funeral of her eldest child. Nicely, she gives these moments a disconnected quality, as well, nodding to her character’s expected melancholy.

The rest of the picture focuses on the unusual friendship that develops between Testi and Elmi as they try to discover what happened to her sister. Bolstered by such genre regulars as Ivan Desny, (Franco favorite) Jack Taylor and Christine Kauffman (Murders in the Rue Morgue), whose kleptomaniac character simply decides to leave Di Salvo halfway through the film, this slow burner is redeemed by an ending with several twists. Director Alberto Negrin also provides some interesting moments like the one where the off-kilter Di Salvo physically threatens Taylor’s smarmy shop owner on a roller coaster.

Helga VK 1Granted, the world probably didn’t need another sleazy film about underage prostitutes being done in by sweaty superiors, but the sight of the exquisite Liné, for even a very short period of time, is always a good reason to let some greasy celluloid settle like red dust around your sagging viewing chair.

Until the next time – SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan

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Hell of a Gal: Pulsebeat

Published January 12, 2017 by biggayhorrorfan

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(Hell of a Gal explores the films of the ever luscious Euro Vixen Helga Liné.)

Mother Earth or mother of Daniel Greene…the stupendous Helga Liné is fit to play them all. Of course, in 1985’s Pulsebeat, a gloriously goofy Perfect take-off, she plays the latter with cool ease and directness. pulsebeat

Naturally, the big joke (of sorts) here is that Liné, at 53, is still gorgeous enough to be confused as the younger, muscular Greene’s ex-lover. The scriptwriters definitely spend the first half of the film leading the audience in that direction as Liné’s conniving Marlene tries to undermine the smooth and juicy Roger (Greene), her former employee, as he attempts to save his health club from certain extinction. Of course, Mama Bear is just lonely…and controlling…and wants her son at her side to help run her own oasis of perfection.

helga-2But by the time the two rival clubs are competing against each other in the film’s climatic, unconvincingly strenuous National Aerobithon, Marlene reveals a bulging pair of maternal instincts and urges her flesh and blood onto victory, despite her own business interests.

Unfortunately, sticking to the tried and true, the film, disappointingly yet unsurprisingly, does focus on Marlene’s physical upkeep with Roger, at one point, calling her “embalmed” and warning her about “her face cracking”. Granted this is a silly comedy, but these moments do stick out as another indication of how women, particularly those of a certain age, are viewed in society. Funnily, here, it almost comes off as ironic, as everyone involved treats Roger’s almost freakishly large muscles and slavish devotion to his body as a normal state of being while a middle aged woman’s attempts to grow older, gracefully, are treated with contempt. Thankfully, Liné, like every woman of grace and power, wears the insults well.helga-1

Until the next time – SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!

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Hell of a Gal: Death Will Have Your Eyes

Published July 25, 2016 by biggayhorrorfan

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(Hell of a Gal explores the exceptionally European film career of the always glorious Helga Liné.)

Sometimes a bra is tossed, irretrievably, away…and sometimes friends are ignored. Sigh. Support is just not appreciated on occasion.

The glorious Helga Liné learned this first hand in 1974 Euro trash fest Death Will Have Your Eyes. As Yvonne, the saucy best friend of Marissa Mell’s adulterous Louisa, Liné finds her honest council ignored – with murderous consequences. Of course, at first, these two ravishing beauties play nice and Liné brings a wearied friendliness to the table as Yvonne helps Louisa establish herself.helga 2

Fortified, Louisa soon marries an older, upscale doctor (Farley Granger) whose idea of a good time is reciting poetry into a recording machine. Bored, Louisa begins an affair with Stefano (Riccardo Salvino), a colleague of her husband’s. Murdering her husband in order to be with Stefano, Louisa is soon ensnared in the clutches of an all seeing blackmailer and, despite a desperate call to Yvonne, ends up falling further into self-destructiveness.

Mell, known for such films as Danger: Diabolik and The Mad Dog Killer, is just as ravishing as Liné  here and one would like to think that this duo could have gone onto create even more continental mayhem if the goddesses of cinema had looked (even more) kindly upon them.

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Until the next time – SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!

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