This films reminds much the sf story "The Body Builders", by Keith Laumer (Galaxy, august 1966, reprint in collections and anthologies in 1968, 1976, 1977 and 2001). The plot is the same: in the future everybody lives in robotic bodies with human appearance (models are like Spencer Tracy, Mary Pickford, John Wayne...) while their bodies lay in the Vault. But their brains can feel everything that the body does, and can change of body in the same way that in the film. The principal character is worried because a extraordinary damage made to the brain of the robot he uses can produce the death of his brain in the Vault. In mid of the story, the character has to go and fight the traitor of the story without his body, and like Willis in the film, is disturbed by the sensations he feels. And, like in the film, the traitor is the less suspected person. I'm sure they have read this story: is so much similar to the movie.
Reviews
15 Reviews
This films copies a scene from "Torso"
5 October 2007
This movie is not only a very bad movie, with awful actors --or presumed actors--, a bored direction and a story unattractive, it also copies exactly an scene from the excellent "giallio" "Torso", directed by Sergio Martino in 1973 (two years before), one of the most celebrated psycho-thrillers of Italian cinema and a cult-movie around the world. In "La Sanguinusa conduce la danza", the director replays the bed scene between the black girl and the white girl, with an peeping-tom watching from a window of the bedroom. Naturally, the scene in Rizzo's movie is ridiculous and inferior to the softness and charming in Martino's film. To put another black girl, another white girl and another peeping-tom replaying the scene is simply the most appropriate way of prove that Rizzo's movie has no ideas, no originality, no taste, and nothing at all. I think that such things are an offense to spectator.
Pretty Poison
(1968)
A very curious story
5 March 2007
I remember well this movie, that I saw in 1969 in my country. From then, not another exhibit, not in TV or VHS. Fortunately, there is a DVD edition --sadly, no subtitles in any language-- for to appreciate this very curious movie. Perkins plays a role as usual in him --our favorite psycho...--, and Tuesday Weld, that brilliant actress, is sensational, as usual in her. A couple very good. Not least, John Randolph, saw in Seconds, by John Frankenheimer, a very good an rare actor. The remarkable in this film is how the fantasies Perkins accepts at last that "out there" --like says John Randolph-- one can not live or survive in fantasies. So, when he discovers the truth about Tuesday Weld, he accepts his fate.
The Projected Man
(1966)
A very very boring film
17 December 2006
I remember this film, exhibit in Barcelona (Spain) in 1970, for the time of a week. Although it could seems incredible, and I can't offer any explanation for it, this movie was exhibit in a theater dedicated to... movies of art and big quality (that, is, Bergman, Resnais, Malle, Buñuel, and... The Projected Man). Few people saw it (luckly people, no doubt) and no reference about this very boring SF movie can be found in the Peter Nichols Science Fiction Encyclopidie, or about the author of the original novel. Very indicative. I remember of it, after all this years, a no-story, a lot of special effects that seems ridiculous effects in fact, and no more. It seems that in some countries the running time is 90 mm. and in anothers 77 min. Well, it means only a little more of pain.
The Gazebo
(1959)
A very funny comedy
7 December 2006
Someone ought to show this movie to Jim Carrey: it deserves a remake. In fact, there was a remake in France, played by Louis DE Funes. This remarkable comedy, a black comedy, has only an error: Glen Ford was a great actor, but the character needs a bit of madness, and Ford played so polite, so friendly. Also with Debbie Reynolds, although that her character is minor. An actor so remarkable in comedy as Carrey could do a great performance and a magnificent comedy based of the original play of this film. recently showed in a local TV, in is yet so amusing, so funny and almost cracy as in its time. But deserves best luck. George Marshall, a discreet director, made in this comedy one of his best pictures. Many people has forgotten The Gazebo, and thinks that is a romantic comedy. It is not: it is a black comedy.
I colpevoli
(1957)
Sinopsis of the story
29 November 2006
A lawyer, Valerio Rossello, and his wife, Lucia, have a son, Mauricio, a young men about 20 years old. The son carries a lazy and disordered life, a bad student, not working, and with bad friends. The mother is overprotecting and the father is rigid and serious. A night, Mauricio returns home bleeding. He and a friend have attempted to assault a man who carried a big amount of money, and run away from the city with the money. But it fails, and the man is shot by Mauricio with a gun, and they have to escape. The father, when Mauricio returns home bleeding and answering with lies to his questions, obtains finally the truth. After a lot of cries among mother, father and son, the lawyer decides call the police and defend his son in the trial.
Z.P.G.
(1972)
A forgotten movie
24 October 2006
Warning: Spoilers
This film was exhibit in the Sitges Fantastic Festival 1972. Geraldine Chaplin was awarded as Best Actress for her play. The commentaries published in SF magazines of their time were enthusiastic. Unfortunately, the film was almost non-exhibit in Barcelona (one week in one theater of double program, and in 1974 in Madrid in the same conditions). Now, there is a DVD edition in Spain, but only in dubbed, not with original voices. This is a film very representative of its time, early '70. The same year when this movie was presented, another SF films ere "Solaris", "A Clockword orange" and "Silent Running": another kind of fantastic or SF films, very different of the SF and fantastic films of today (or even 10 years later...). It is curious to note that some guides and encyclopedias of fantastic films are not favorable to this film, and eve one of them indicates that the movie ends without no sense. At least, the DVD edition shows clearly that the couple arrives to an inland that is a radioactive cemetery, a bitter end for their history. Could be that some versions of the film omitted this end? Certainly, it is not a enjoying movie: it is very sad, very dark. The best scene is, perhaps, when Carole (Geraldine Chaplin) is going to have a baby in the cellar: a very good scene. Z.P.G. is a rarity of its time. It is also another conception of SF movies, now forgotten and missing.
A good play, a very bad film
12 October 2006
In fact, I saw first the play in the 70's, in my city, Barcelona, in a very good performance, and the public was very delightful. As a curiosity: the role of the Mother was played... by a man! That gave a satirical and extravagant turn to the show. Unfortunately, the film of Quine is, sadly, a disaster: a comedy without grace, very boring and it is a pity that such a talented director fall so low in this movie: it is very difficult to complete the vision of this film. The impression of the play was that it is a experimental comedy. But the impression of the film is that it is a very nonsense history with characters very ridiculous.
Our Mother's House
(1967)
A forgotten jewel
29 August 2006
This excellent film is a forgotten jewel. An intriguing story about the dark side of the childhood, but also a poetic look to a group of boys and girls who decided to continue his life as usual, as if his mother were among them and not dead. So, the undesired return of a father (or maybe not the father of all of them, perhaps) breaks the normal life (in the point of view of the children) that they live. So the father (Dirk Bogarde) should pay for to be an stranger in some kind of closed paradise. The direction of Jack Clayton (remember The Innocents) is perfect, and so is Dirk Bogarde, in the best moment of his career of actor.
WUSA
(1970)
An important film of the seventies
10 June 2006
When I first saw this movie in 1971, it impressed me, and my friends, very much. I saw it at least 4 or 5 times. This is one of the most important films of the '70, a political fiction of its time... but in a revision a few days ago in VHS, a film that seems as new as before, very actual. Although I think that Rosenberg was not the most indicate director for this film (Frankenheimer seems to me a most appropriate election, due to his asphyxiating atmospheres), the strong of the story and the interpretation of an extraordinary Anthony Perkins, among the others actors, gives its force to the movie. It is a pity that there are no DVD edition (I suspect that the Spanish exhibition in its time was very censured...) for to see that film in good conditions. The people that doesn't know are missing a very notable film. I liked so much that in my blog I have written a long essay about the film, for the benefit of the young people that doesn't know it.
Viridiana
(1961)
A Not-Galdós Buñuel, but...
27 January 2006
Sometimes one read that "Viridiana" is an adaptation of a novel by Benito Pérez Galdós, but this is not true, as one can see reading the credits of the film. The fact that Buñuel adapted two novels of the Spanish writter, "Nazarín" and "Tristana", and also the fact that the films is tittled with the name of her principal character (phonetically similar to "Tristana"= Tristana/Viridana), lead to some people to think that, what is an error. But... in fact one can think that yes, that "Viridiana" is a non-confessed version of one of the less known books by Galdós, "Halma", that has the particularity of be a sequel of "Nazarín", filmed before by Buñuel. In "Halma", Nazarín is a secondary character, and the lead character of the novel is an aristocratic woman, who, inspired by the priest Nazarín, dedicates her life to the mistifs, in a very similar way to the Viridiana character of the film. Since this novel is, as I said, not well-known, few people saw the similarity. Another curiosity: the character played in the film by Fernando Rey is very similar to the character that the same actor played in "Tristana". All this is in fact not so strange, because Galdós was a writter well-known and admired by Buñuel, and could be that the lecture and the memory of "Halma" inspired, in a subliminal way, that film, "Viridana".
The Nickel Ride
(1974)
An excellent movie to discover
24 January 2006
Warning: Spoilers
Unfortunately for this film, only a few people saw it, it seems, and few appreciated it, but it is one of the most impressive films of Mulligan, specially the last scene, with Jason Miller sitting outside his office, the keys in his hands, and dead, because he has nowhere to go, and with his friend talking to him, not knowing yet that he is not alive. It is a gangsters movie in a different way that gangsters movies are: it is the end on an era, the fall of a little man in the gang, beloved by his friends, but ignored by his chiefs, that had ordered his death. One thinks that this "camera piece" was in advance of its time, and it is a pity that more people everywhere ignores one of the masterpieces of Mulligan.
The Midnight Story
(1957)
A very notable crime story
24 January 2006
When young, I saw this movie three or four times, and from then I have not seen more: not TV exhibits, not video edition (at least in my country) and no DVD edition (as I know). Instead, I keep a formidable memory of it: a crime story where the humanity of the characters reveals to be the most important thing: Tony Curtis searches a murderer, and takes friendship with Gilbert Roland, and fall in love with Roland's sister, Marisa Pavan. But Roland is the murderer that he has searched, and when he discovers that, explodes the human conflict --the friendship, the treason, the love-- and that gives the force of the film. Perhaps it is the masterpiece of Pevney, a modest director with some interesting movies, today forgotten in favour of others directors and movies not always betters than theirs. I wished that more people could see this film, and appreciate its valors and quality. A modest story of friendship and crime.
Baby the Rain Must Fall
(1965)
Comentaries about the DVD edition
24 January 2006
Last week I saw this movie in DVD. Fortunately for me, there was Spanish subtitles. I said fortunately, because the Paramount edition says that the subtitles were only in English and french, but the menu of the root offered also Japanese and Spanish, so I could see the movie better than with subtitles only in English (I am Spanish,I can read English more or less, so I need subtitles in the DVD). The film remembers very well the atmosphere of "To Kill a Mockinbird", the photography, the way in what Mulligan put the actors in front of the camera, the way they talk inside a room, and a character is listening outside.
The Other
(1972)
About an excellent film of evil inside a child
21 July 2005
"The Other" is a masterpiece, and perhaps an unique masterpiece. In the cinema of today perhaps could be difficult to adapt for the screen a book as Tom Tryon's book, in times of political correction. Also, this is an horror film with no special effects, in the middle of the summer, and in a peaceful landscape. Years ago, I published on a Spanish fanzine (BEM)an essay about this film that was nominated for an award and caused a good impression, especially in people that doesn't know this film, or had not seen it during years. I think that a good DVD edition of this film is absolutely necessary for the DVD's addicts and film lovers that doesn't know this film, a masterpiece of horror, but also ot the dark side of the mind. "The Other" is most admirable because is peaceful style to show the dark sides of childhood and one, at the end of this film, asks himself, "what could happen in the future to this boy?".
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