“Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.”
(Robert A. Heinlein.)
Grok it, dudes.
A whopping happy FIFTIETH FUCKING BIRTHDAY to Stranger In A Strange Land. Can’t believe Valentine Michael Smith has been rolling through the cultural landscape for half a century. R.I.P. to wonderful Robert Heinlein, who died on a May 8th, by the by, in case you’re keeping track of my apocalyptic ramblings.
You are only an egg. Now get out there and make some water brothers in Heinlein’s memory.
This is what the cover of my copy looks like.
You know what? This was going to be Bradbury Month but let’s bump that to September: that’s nice synchronicity anyway because that’s my birthday month and he’s my fave-ohs. July is now officially Robert Heinlein Month! Balloons and confetti just fell on us all!
Miss D has just today (Monday as I write this) upped the ante, “we need new glasses”-wise. She actually made an appointment to get a new prescription and frames. Dang! I had got a new prescription (same as the old boss) in November so, really, I need only go with her to get frames. I’ve been putting it off for too long. Hoping to get newly spec’d out shortly. The only trouble is I’m not sure in which direction to go for frames. My old Buddy Holly glasses have begun to crop up all over, which is not so bad because I don’t need things to be “underground” in order to like them, but their shape forces my lashes to moosh up against the lenses, which I hate. I need to go in a new direction. I’m just not sure which.
Am I daring enough to rock a monocle for my astigmatism? Only time will tell!
She was a dull person, but a sensational invitation to make babies.
(Slaughterhouse-Five. 1969.)
Is that often the case? I’ve been trying to get to know dull people more, because I did this thing when I was younger where I participated in cheer and rushed a sorority and I discovered that all those people that I’d a), reverse discriminated against by assuming they thought they were too good for me; therefore, I considered myself the superior one and assured our mutual alienation and b), speculated must be completely empty-minded automatons programmed to do nothing but stroll down the street saying, “Where you at?” on their cell phones like cockroaches who keep living despite having lost their heads, were at any rate just as real and authentic as me, and during this time of social expansion I found that I was the guilty snobbish one, and they each had their own personal memories and dreams and private tragedies. This probably seems overwhelmingly evident to you but it was brand-new shit to me: I’d always assumed that those type of people were just dull sheep. I’ve found myself slipping back in to that sort of deliberate ignorance of slick or facile-seeming people, and I’ve been trying to fight this bullshit reverse-elitism by purposely starting conversations with waitresses with bump-its and guys in leather car coats at the bank. I encourage you to give it a whirl, too. … Especially the waitresses.
I hate myself for disliking Steve Trevor and thinking him weak when all he does is honestly need Wonder Woman’s help in this panel, and I hate myself for being left cold by the role-reversal, male-damsel-in-distress trope established by female-centric comic books, for which they are rightly lauded. The whole point of this project was to prod at my dislike of this exact scenario. So, as with anything we hate, we have to examine whether we are despising an aspect of ourselves in the object of our objection.
On my and Diana Prince’s Christmas wish list, yes?
But then they danced down the street like dingledodies, and I shambled after as I’ve been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes “Awww!”
(Kerouac, Jack. On the Road, 1951.)
Won’t you please go crazy just once in a while.
My daughter and I went to the downtown branch of our public library today, to which I had not been in epochs. A year, at least.
I had to buy two more bags so we could carry the books, and my bag ripped so we were drag-assing to the car, both of us weighted down by several bags each. The trunk was stuck, and propping the ripped bag on my hip in order to try and really pull up on the lid sent half the books sliding like an avalanche over my shoulder because of the arch my body was in, where they tumbled behind me to the ground and christ-knows-why cartwheeled in to the smack middle of the drive. Why not?
Kidlet instinctively darted out to retrieve them, so I was in a panic shouting “No!”, throwing my head around to look for cars and warning her, “Get back in position!,” “position” being facing her door, with both hands on the car — yes, I know it is a seemingly fascist thing to teach a child to memorize, but it keeps her semi-secure while I try to juggle crap with my hands full in a parking lot. Today was a case in point. As soon as I’d managed to fumble the keyfob into unlock, I told her to get in the car, and as soon as her car door closed, let out a very heartfelt, “Fucking fuck!” Then I picked up the books. Twist ending!
the kitty nightlight keeps it on-theme.
If you think all of that’s chaotic, farcical, and vulgar, you should have seen us in the library. Think, “Jackie Chan meets the Three Stooges, with special guest writer Quentin Tarantino.”
A portion of my haul is above. Snagged a few more gems for the Wonder Woman research and a couple Hammett novels for funsies; also Far Arden and a new book by Elizabeth Kostova, who wrote The Historian (a yearly read). I almost picked up Embroideries but I’ve almost literally just reread Persepolis and I decided to wait until next time. Does anyone else find to your disappointment that when you read a great deal of someone else’s art and writing, it begins to accidentally spill over in to your own, or am I the only hack?
Anyway, it’s all at your Local Library!
Also, I wanted to show off this improvised bookcover for Anne Rice’s The Witching Hour. My California copy has gone saucily topless up front for around a half a decade (thus prompting the purchase of my much more gently used Oregon copy) and I could brook no more. I decided that, after eighteen years, I no longer really needed the Kirkus and New York Times, etc, reviews at the front telling me the book was worth a look, and, knowing the dedication already — to Stan Rice, her husband —, I flipped to the first page and started duct-taping the front ten-odd junk pages together. This made a stiff enough cover so that, when I lie in bed curled on my side to read, the force of my hand holding the thicker part of the book does not wear and worry and rip away at the front any longer, saving the book from further separating from the spine.
I’m pretty proud of my shitty repair job. The spine itself has always been fine, so it as not as though the book would be anonymous when shelved or sidewise-viewed, the only ways it would matter in a search, but I wrote “The Witching Hour” and “Anne Rice” on the duct-tape cover anyway because it felt right.
Tightly clamped legs is just what the doctor ordered, eh, Bruce? I suppose Dr. Wertham would make much of this, but sometimes a boy dangling from a chain and riding you is just a boy dangling from a chain and riding you.
vintage poster art by Michael Myers on the behance network.
“Like the girls in other stories, Robin is sometimes held captive …. They constantly rescue each other from violent attacks by an unending number of enemies. The feeling is conveyed that we men must stick together because there are so many villainous creatures who have to be exterminated. They lurk not only under every bed but also behind every star in the sky” (p. 190-1).
Wertham argued that danger could be stimulating, and that in the wrong circumstances that stimulation could take a sexual turn. He called such stories “erotic rescue fantasies.” They were intended, he said, to make Robin more devoted to Batman than to anyone else on earth.
(Wertham, Frederic. Seduction of the Innocent. 1954. qtd in “Wertham’s Ghost,” The Animated Batman. April 19, 2006.)
Childrens’ rights crusader, noted comic-“reformer,” and homophobe Dr. Frederic Wertham took special care in his explosively nonsensical bullshit-book Seduction of the Innocent to devote more time to dissecting the perceived homoeroticism in Batman than to any other comic of the time. Winner, winner, chicken dinner? Dubious and highly disputed honor. For the record, the creators initially found his accusations laughable and explained that the character of Robin was indeed intended as wish-fulfillment, but only to keep the audience of young boys who imagined themselves being able to aid the Dark Knight in his efforts to clean up his city. Oh, what rabble-rousers.
On the other hand, Wertham is perhaps the first theorist of any note to take a genuinely psychological and critical eye to comics, trying to root out the source of their success and overarching mythos in their stories, and, though I may not 100% agree with his conclusions, I cannot in good conscience decry that early and earnest undertaking of a stab at a [misguided] unified theory of comics. People read them: they do matter.
Batman Confidential, No. 18. “The Bat and the Cat, Part 2 of 5: ‘Insanity Claws!'” by Fabian Nicieza and Kevin Maguire (Aug 2008).
Finally finished up that comic I mentioned buying and starting around a month ago. Things have been hectic lately and I kept forgetting it was in the garage. Like I said, I jumped in mid-series, but I think I can provide a little backstory you will enjoy to explain this panel.
As this issue begins, Batgirl (Barbara Gordon) is hunting down Catwoman (Selina Kyle) because she suspects Catwoman stole her father Jim’s notebook, which doubtless has sensitive personal information, drawings of dalmatian puppies in sunflower fields, and confidential case notes and grocery lists in it — Gordon loves dalmations.
The intrepid Spunky McCheeseball manages to run the kitteh-lady to ground by following her to a scandalous private club meeting. It turns out to be the Gotham Hedonist Society, where everyone goes around nude but for masks and indulges in safe, supervised, kinky insane sex with multiple partners. (Are you surprised in a city known for disguised superheroes and villains that this would become a fetish?) They let Little Red keep her hood but make her lose the clothes. Rules are rules!
She gets the notebook away from her target, and, after some naked wrestling, escapes the club and sadly dresses again, thus ending the one interesting and unpredictable thing she has done for me so far. Luckily, good ol’ loveable Catwoman stalks the drippy gingersnatch to a junkyard and steals the notebook back.
A lively fight and footchase ensues, ending on a rooftop, where the always-misunderstood kitteh-lady reveals begrudgingly that she needs to decode the information in the notebook, which Pippi Purplestocking has discovered is encrypted (thanks a lot, Daddy!), in order to save someone’s life — then promptly gets shot off the roof by a sniper that Batgirl can’t see.
Now I’m looking for the next one in the series. I’ll keep you posted.
Topless Claudia Schiffer in Catwoman mask by Mario Testino for German Vogue (June, 2008).
Winner winner, chicken dinner! I said goddamn, Claudia Schiffer. Haters to the left.
Internet, I am going to let you knock off early and go home for the rest of the day, because you have truly outdone yourself. Great hustle.
Several days later:
Wow, guys. Monica Bellucci and my fave photographer, Ellen Von Unwerth, are seriously giving the topless Claudia Schiffer Catwoman by Mario Testino of several days’ ago a real run for its money for the internet’s Best [Batman] Picture Ever contest.
Monica Bellucci, photographed in Catwoman mask and leather bodysuit by the stellar and magnificent Ellen Von Unwerth for “Bella Bellucci,” a feature in Vogue España, June 2006.
While Monica’s cleavage is always impressive and, of course, her face is basically the most beautiful on Earth, I’m still giving the advantage to the Mario-Claudia collaboration for toplessness. Better luck next time, Team Monica-EVU!
TODAY:
I’ve brought them both back for this very special Flashback Friday because it’s a tiime for a bat couture Showdown!: Model Citizens as Catwoman edition.
Top: Monica Bellucci photographed by Ellen von Unwerth ; Bottom: Claudia Schiffer photographed by Mario Testino.
And ladies, please remember that in my mind, you are both winners. Pick your feline femme fatale poison below!
This entry was originally posted on December 5, 2009 at 2:42 pm. Captions have been added to some of the photos.
There are many recommendable qualities about what is, to me, the title holder of all-time greatest cheeseball popcorn-flick, writer-director Jack Hill’s masterpiece of the exploitation genre, Switchblade Sisters (1975).
For one thing, the four taglines are as follows:
They’d Rather Kill Their Man Than Lose Him
So easy to kill. So hard to love.
Mothers… lock up your sons. The Switchblade Sisters are coming!
Lace… Maggie… Patch… Donut… Bunny… The wildest girl gang that ever blasted the streets!
Dig the poster art (click any of them to blow it up).
The film, which do not think this is the last entry in which I will talk about it, centers on girl gang The Dagger Debs — a sort of ladies auxiliary of their boyfriends’ gang, the Silver Daggers — who later change their name to The Jezebels (some bootlegs of the film still have this as the title) under the advice of their new co-leader.
That bowling alley is rougher than the cantina on Mos Eisley.
Name changes and the new co-leader do not sit well with what is for my money the number one reason with a bullet (or switchblade, if you prefer) to watch this movie:
This flyass bitch right here.
Monica Gayle as “Patch.”
Her name is Patch. Former first lieutenant of the Dagger Debs, Patch came to kick ass and look hot as hell — and she’s all outta blue eyeliner.
You will want to marry her when you watch her snarl and flip and hiss across the screen. It’s wonderful.
Look at that willowy neck and perfectly snide expression. I cannot believe that Monica Gayle did not go on to ridiculous heights of stardom and fame, but at least it ups my chances of running in to her at the grocery.
Quentin Tarantino put up the money through his Rolling Thunder productions company to oversee the recent remaster and distribution of this film in dvd format. He claims it is among his favorite 70’s movies, and QT devotees insist that shades of the plotline, composition, and even characters from Switchblade Sisters can be seen in some of Tarantino’s films.
Note the composition, with organic materials framing the hard face and the strong horizontals in their look-space.
I cannot imagine where they are getting this. Even if he has seen Switchblade Sisters, I doubt it has in any way influenced his own work.*
What am I talking about?, they clearly have patches on different eyes — psh. Not alike at all.
*Obviously that’s in jest … but actually I love the fact that he based the “look” of Elle Driver on Patch. Love it. And then he put Daryl Hannah in the role on top of it?! Winner winner, chicken dinner! It’s like that loquacious elfin genius makes movies purely so I don’t have to. My hat is forever off to him.
addendum 7-2-10: It’s still true. I know it is becoming vogue for some reason to consider QT “tired” or “irrelevant” or “pretentious” or any one of a million labels that float about like baseless ice cubes in the tall glass of haterade Hollywood critics pass around, but I will love him, deeply and without measure or reservation, until the end of time. Call me.
Irena: Some nights there is another sound. The panther. It screams … like a woman. I hadn’t realized how dark it was getting. I like the dark — it is friendly.
(Cat People. Directed by Jacques Tourneur. Screenplay by DeWitt Bodeen. RKO Pictures, 1942.)
I rented this from the library when I was 14 and it rocked my world. Super-hot. Not in a “furry” way — in a just-before-the-censors went nuts way. Sexy dialogue, dark and mysterious clouds coming out of sewers, thick bangs, blondes and brunettes, light bdsm and love triangles. Like, wow! And it’s all at Your Local Library.
The truth about cats and dogs. Simone Simon with a statue of Anubis in a still from Cat People.
Simone Simon, and the picture itself, have developed something of a cult following over the years — this is a coy understatement; there are like just under sixteen hundred blogs I’m sure dedicated to how to most precisely masturbate to the technical prowess of Tourneur’s Cat People — and the popularity of her portrayal as Irena in the film has not left the character of Catwoman untinged. In the 1966 Batman movie, “the Catwoman” (not series regular Jul-Newms, who was washing her hair, but rather your Miss America 1955 Lee Meriwether) poses as a sexy woman from the USSR named Miss Kitka Karenska, employing vaguely the same hairstyle and Romany-rich Eastern European accent used by Simone Simon in Cat People.
I can has intense sexual cult following?
More importantly, after DC’s Infinite Crisis, which-kind-of-but-not-really restored a lot of the retconned into obsolescence storylines that were wiped out in Crisis on Infinite Earths, in One Year Later, Selina Kyle uses the name Irene Dubrovna when she must hide out in the underworld, having temporarily sort-of-retired from her Catwoman vigilante duties due to her pregnancy with Helena, her daughter. (This Helena is not the Helena Wayne of Earth-Two, nor the Helena Kyle of Earth-2, but a Helena in general, of whom what will become — eventually taking up the Huntress mask? tracking down her father for suresies? something else? — it remains to be seen.)
Batman’s big love scene — with a goat. Wtmfh? So many more questions than answers. I’ll admit, that would discredit Batman. That would discredit just about anybody, even people who make their living in legit adult entertainment and are recognized for it. Like, I dunno, Tera Patrick, even. I mean — a goat? Shit. That’s bad juju. Madison Ivy all calls Tera Patrick to cancel coffee dates; Ron Jeremy turns and quickly walks away from Tera Patrick at the Van Nuys opening of some low-rent Ed Hardy boutique; Sasha Grey sees Tera Patrick waving in the security camera at the gates of her complex and pretends she is sick with laryngitis.* Puzzled and unwanted, a lonely Tera Patrick walks forlornly down Rodeo Drive, scuffing her clear lucite heels as she trudges to the picked over remains of a sidewalk sale at the Bebe. Poor Tera Patrick.
Oh, holy heck! Piss up a penny whistle, it is CLEARLY time for me to hit the hay! You stay classy, The Internet. I am exhausted as heck.
*A maledictory fiction for humor’s sake: the real Sasha Grey would NEVER do that. (And needless to say, neither would Ms. Patrick be guilty of hurting an animal even for the sake of film.)
I went to the Garden of Love,
And saw what I never had seen:
A Chapel was built in the midst,
Where I used to play on the green.
In the ruins of St. Ebba’s Lunatic Asylum. Epsom, Surrey, England.
And the gates of this Chapel were shut,
And ‘Thou shalt not’ writ over the door;
So I turn’d to the Garden of Love,
That so many sweet flowers bore,
Photographed by Ellen von Unwerth for her book Revenge.
And I saw it was filled with graves,
And tomb-stones where flowers should be:
And Priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars my joys and desires.
I’ve been pulling some threads together about Wonder Woman — get to that later today, maybe — and one of the more surprising facts across which I stumbled was that her creator lived in a polygamous/polyamorous relationship, which reminded my wandering self that a) it’s been days since a Music Moment appeared and b) I’ve got a new picture to go along with my old post on this topic and song! For myself, this could never work. I understand it’s an idea that’s out there, but for me, that is just not how sexytimes go nor by what emotion they are informed. It would have to be some kind of crazy-go-nuts bizarro world where I was on “e” and didn’t know anybody involved to consider it. Too much emotion otherwise. I’m a lover. Anyway. Take it away, SRC!
From the LP Sonic Jihad, treat yourself to Snake River Conspiracy’s track celebrating the [dubious — how can you people share??? pretty sure I am way too selfish/passionate/crazy for this to work] joys of polyamory, “You and Your Friend.”
“Threesome” by wondermaker on deviantart
In my dreams, I can see us in a tight embrace,
doing all the things
that we never really did:
I think I’m in love with you.
Must we go run through our lives with our eyes closed
to the loving happiness that we can share?
I think I’m in love with
You and your friend,
Tobey “the Tornado” Torres, original lead vocalist for Snake River Conspiracy, and pal Theresa Beth “Tairrie B” Murphy of Tura Satan, My Ruin, and LVRS.
Honest, I do,
I can’t see you and me and her without each other
And I hope you feel the same way too
(you and me and her)
I spend all my time on the telephone line,
Trying to say it just right this time,
Something that could change your mind
I know this is love and I feel it there,
I’ll whisper something so sincere
Exactly what you want to hear
l to r: Scarlett Johanssen, Penelope Cruz, Javier Bardem. Still from Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008).
Now you know the things that I say when I’m swimming
Through the flood of all my
desire (can be so unclear)
But I know I’m in love with you.
In my dreams I still see us in a tight embrace
In spite of all the things that
the people say when they stare
that’s how I know I’m in love with
you and your friend,
When I was at school I used to scream in trains, in those concertina things between the carriages. I used to try to be so good that sometimes I couldn’t bear it any more.
It was when I turned down a project, because I thought I couldn’t be funny anymore, that my mother booted me in the ass and said, “You have to get out of this. Laugh and the world laughs with you. Cry — and you cry alone.”
“One does not kill oneself for the love of a woman, but because love — any love — reveals us in our nakedness, in our misery, in our vulnerability, in our nothingness.”
(Caesare Pavese, one of the greatest Italian poets and literary minds of the 20th century, c. 1950, just before his death by suicide after his failed affair with American actress Constance Dowling.)
Love strips us painfully, pitifully bare, like some shorn sheep or a little boy who’s just got his first buzzcut: this awkward, naked truth is very accurate, but I’m actually so glad of the many types of love; Sgr. Pavese seems to find all of them disheartening, but, respectfully, I dissent. I have struggled a long time with the difficulty of confronting and revealing my feelings, but I now believe that it is possible to examine my own self and still manage not to fall in to complete despair. Without the love of my family and friends I could never have borne some of the hard hits my heart has taken, historically and up to the present. I wish with all my soul that Sgr. Pavese could have found that same solace, but I wish him all the best in the life he has now. RIP.
“It’s not who I am underneath, but what I do that defines me.” B. Wayne, Batman Begins (Christopher Nolan, 2005).
Agree? Disagree?
Deeds speak volumes for the definition of ourselves, but I think “who we are underneath” is equally important to defining us. In a perfect world, sure, “what you do” is the outer reflection of an ideally ordered inner self. But who the unholy effing heck is that organized and in accord?
The roads not taken, the thoughts kept to ourselves that make up this rich and sometimes treacherous interior landscape of our minds — these are as much an important part of knowing the true core and definition of ourselves as the demonstrative, observable acts any joker on the outside sees, acts that could follow either in accordance with or defiance of that secret inner roadmap. What we are underneath almost arguably eclipses deeds, which can be true or can just as easily be lies that we tell the outside world to keep our inside self a secret. Underneath is where the real and unhideable truth sits.
We are all just knocking around leaving impressions and confiding secrets but sometimes lying and sometimes acting what we would term “out of character,” so really the two things — “what we do” and “what we are underneath” — must be taken together to even approach defining someone.
Not clear why that is set up to be mutually exclusive in this quote. I’m suddenly not sure this is as mind-blowingly brilliant a quote as I thought at first blush lo five years ago.
A touch of giallo and genuine fear in the rainy April. In honor of the upcoming thirtieth anniversary of his death, I declare this Mario Bava Movie Moment Week. He was a really terrific director of plenty of genres, though he is best known for his work in horror, with a good sense of fun AND fear, and a truly great gift for cinematic expression. His colors, lighting, and cinematographic choices are amazing. I look forward to highlighting some of my faves from him over the next seven days!
Bava big pimpin’! image via Thizz Face Disco right here on the wordpress.
Thought I’d start with I Tre volti della paura, aka The Three Faces of Fear, aka Black Sabbath (1963). It’s a story in stills edition, folks, so skip to the bottom if you don’t want spoilers!
(stills via proximity seamstress in the Nostalgia Party community on the lj. YOU ARE SO COOL!)
Arguably Bava’s masterpiece, Black Sabbath is broken in to three segments. I feel that each of the three segments explores a various type of terror: from the psychological, to the monstrous, to the uncanny. The only element of continuity between the three stories is a cinematic one: Boris Karloff, one of the kings of classic horror, comes out to introduce each segment in the version with which I’m familiar (though I’m told this is not the case with the original U.S. release), and plays a vampire in the second of the segments.
These screencaps are exclusively from what I’d term the strictly psychological thriller segment, “Part I: The Telephone,” a noirish story about wicked people with ulterior motives couched in deceit, coupled with the dramatic sexy violence and twists characteristic of giallo films. Set in Paris, the short is familiar pulp territory, with the titillating added thrill of bisexuality, but it’s shot with a Hitchcockian tension to the angles and edited with sustained, lingering frames interrupted by abrupt cuts that really ratchet up the anxiety level.
The story takes place in pretty much one location over a single evening, almost in real time, which contributes considerably — along with the short length of the segment — to a swiftly rising pitch in suspense.
This hot ticket is Rosy, played by mega-hottie Michèle Mercier. Rosy is a call girl whose boyfriend and former pimp, Frank, has just escaped from prison. As she testified against him in his trial, she’s understandably concerned after hearing the dramatic news of his escape that he is going to seek her out soon for reprisals.
(And you thought nervous girls getting all naked and wet was a trope that was invented for seventies slasher flicks. Silly you. Friday the 13th ain’t got nothin’ on Sgr. Bava!)
It seems Rosy’s concerns are well-placed, because she begins receiving mysterious, threatening phone messages from a gruff caller who says he is Frank and warns that he is coming to get her.
Rosy calls a girlfriend, Mary, to confide her fears. Over the course of the conversation, you realize, oh, snap! This is a girlfriend-girlfriend! And Rosy is now even hotter. A high-femme damsel in distress, she is relieved when her more strong, slightly domineering and weirdly “off” ex promises to hurry over to the apartment and help Rosy relax.
Mary’s “offness” is explained when she turns right back around and calls Rosy back, disguising her voice and pretending to be Frank — she is the one who’s been making the threatening phone calls that have Rosy so shaken up. Also, she is a very smart dresser, as you can see in the following still.
Look at you, girl! All a dominant and crafty lipstick sixties lesbian, all suited up and catty in your emerald green, all situated in the bed looking cosmopolitan with your little sherry glass — I said goddamn, Lidia Alfonso: haters to the left. She’s looking mighty good. That shit would sooo work on me.
Mary is just full of good counsel and reassurance for her frightened former lover. As an example, she suggests that Rosy put a carving knife under her pillow …
… and take a nutritious, delicious tranquilizer. Those are two things that always go together really, really well, especially in a film called The Three Faces of Fear.
Man. The trustworthy Miss Mary’s lifestyle tips are practically gold. She should start a magazine. How to Put Your Ladytimes Lover in Serious Danger: Accessories and Cocktail Suggestions for the Scheming Butch on the Go!
To Mary’s credit, once Rosy drops off, Mary pens her a letter which explains her motivations (something we’ve been curious about, too, since making prank calls saying you plan to end your lover’s life is kind of a sketchy thing to do).
Mary writes that she had missed Rosy terribly since their breakup and, when she heard about Frank the scary pimp’s prison break, she decided to use the opportunity to invent a scenario where Frank was threatening to murder Rosy so that Rosy would call Mary for help. After being around Mary again, the plan went, Rosy would realize the mistake of their separation and invite her back in to her life. Mary’s sorry it had to be done in a deceitful and scary way (which it didn’t, actually — that kind of convolution is pretty much strictly the logical provenance of giallo), but she writes that she loves Rosy and hopes to make it up to her.
Stop — Boris Karloff time! (Please, Boris Karloff, don’t hurt ’em.) I have inserted this interruption completely out of sequence. I just really wanted to throw it out there. Back to the story. Are you ready for the twisty turn of the screw?
While Mary is busy writing her love letter to the tranqued out Rosy, a man steals in to the apartment, clearly intent on murder. It is Frank, the pimp, now a genuine threat even though thirty seconds ago we thought he was not! He didn’t call but he was actually coming all along.
Crap! Mary, with whom we have just become totally sympathetic due to her big reveal of being a lover not a murderer, does not hear him because she is wrapped up in her lovey-dovey explanatory note-writing, and Rosy is asleep in the arms of Prince Valium in the other room.
He grabs the silk stocking off of the chair where Rosy discarded it earlier before her steamy I’m-scared-so-I’ll-strip bath and subsequent frightened call to Mary.
He sees the back of Mary’s dark head and, oh, no!, without seeing her face, begins to strangle her with the stocking. He assumes she is Rosy, his intended target.
The muffled thumps of Mary and Frank’s struggle Rosy slept straight through, but her lover’s death rattle finally wakes Rosy.
Maybe some kind of sympatico mental thing. She knows she has just heard something bad. She realizes it was Frank and deduces that he killed Mary. She is frozen in fear, looking at his face.
Suddenly, Rosy remembers the knife that poor dead Mary suggested that she stash beneath the pillow back when we still half-thought Mary might end up using it on Rosy herself.
Rosy stabs Frank with the knife, killing him, then breaks down sobbing and freaking out and crying, surrounded by the corpses of people she used to have sex with. I assume someone found her and stopped her screaming eventually. In any case, that knife sure ended up being a danged good idea. Why did you say it wasn’t? Sheesh.
Bava at work.
Mario Bava said repeatedly that this was the best of all his directorial work, placing it even above the classic La Maschera del Demonio/The Mask of Satan/The Black Mask (it is in Italian horror directors’ contracts that all their movie titles have at least three crazy names. Did You Know?). The man — Quentin Tarantino — has cited the narrative structure of Black Sabbath as his inspiration for the disjointed cinematic discourse in Pulp Fiction.
Why did I choose the least-flattering picture of QT ever? Answer: So that he will look at it and think I’m the best he can do and we can get married.
Seeing this motion picture on its release in Great Britain also inspired one Mister Ozzy Osbourne and his associate, a Mister Geezer Butler to change the name of their heavy blues/rock ensemble Earth to the film’s U.K. title: “Black Sabbath.” Previous band names included Mythology and effing Polka Tuck (I have a really hard time with that), so you may thank Sgr. Bava for inspiring one of the badassicalest band names in the history of rock-and-or-roll*, chosen by a group that would go on to become the Greatest Metal Band of All Time. Grazie!
*The worst band names ever are “Green Jellÿ”** and “The Alan Parsons Project.” Documented fact.
The first instance is the most idiotic use of an umlaut in recorded human history, and the second name sounds like a public access show about whittling that you watch by accident in a hospital because the batteries in the clicker have died and the only magazine in the deserted waiting room is a copy of People featuring Kathie Lee Gifford. Which you have already read since arriving. Cover to cover. Twice. (“Former ‘Brady Bunch’ star’s new lease on life — thanks to gem meditation!” “Dr. Mehmet Oz lists the surprising holiday foods that you can load up on!”)
image via the smart and sexy towleroad on the typepad.
Agree with me that the second cover story on that phantom hospital waiting room’s phantom Kathie Lee issue of People is: “Plus — Mario López: Why hasn’t TV’s most eligible (and ripped!) bachelor found a lady?” Oh, such a head-scratcher. Poor Mario! Sigh. Just like Liberace.
**In Green Jellÿ’s defense, they actively set out from the moment of their inception to be literally the worst band ever, beginning with their name. To my knowledge, the Alan Parsons Project was titled in earnest and has no such excuse.
The Thought Experiment 