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Plot: Waldemar Daninsky faces Countess Elisabeth Báthory… again!

El Retorno del Hombre Lobo (or The Return Of the Wolfman, released in North America as The Craving in 1985 and, at a later stage, internationally as Night of the Werewolf) was the first of two El Hombre Lobo episodes produced during the eighties. Times were changing and audience tastes were no different. The wicked and wild excesses of the 1970s had given way to the staunch conservativism and rampant debauchery of the 80s. The American slasher had become the new horror standard and suddenly Paul Naschy no longer found himself to be the trailblazer he once was. He experienced increasing difficulty in securing North American distribution for his features and back at home in Spain box office returns weren’t what they once were either. It was the dawn of a new age and Spain’s fiercest proponent of the macabre and the fantastic found himself out of step with what the younger generation was producing. As daunting as the circumstances might have been Naschy forged onward. As legend has it this was a personal favorite of Naschy’s and it’s easy to see why. Waldemar Daninsky never was in finer form in the more recent episodes than he is here.

That the Eurocult wave was cresting was apparent by 1976 and four years later the situation was even more dire. The death of Generalísimo Francisco Franco in late 1975 not only meant the slow crawl towards democracy and increased freedom on all fronts, it also signaled the end of mass government funding for the arts, including domestic cinema. If it wasn’t terrible enough Spanish and Italian exports had a hard time competing with big budget Hollywood box office hits as The Exorcist (1973) and Jaws (1975) (which didn’t stop both countries from trying and producing a veritable deluge of alternately obnoxious and hilarious no-budget imitations and knockoffs) and were only getting limited theatrical engagements in North America, once their primary market. To add insult to injury, the home video market was about to explode in just a few years from where they were. Naschy however refused to go gently into that good night and saw these newly-imposed restrictions as an opportunity to cut costs by writing, producing and directing his own features. He had made a television documentary on Madrid's Prado Museum and its art collection for Japanese company Hori Kikaku and they extended their gratitude by providing finances for whatever Naschy wanted to make. Thus he got together with partners Augusto Boue, Masurao Takeda from Dálmata Films, and Julia Saly and formed Acónito Films. Acónito (the scientific term for wolfsbane) would be responsible for all prime Naschy films this decade. Acónito Films produced a spate of features but only a few fall within the purview of this review.

While Mark Of the Wolfman (1968) set the stage it was from the much protracted first sequel Assignment Terror (1969) onward that the El Hombre Lobo became a recurring character in the Naschy canon. Sequels would appear annually (or every other year) up until and including The Werewolf and the Yeti (1975). In that five-year stretch Paul Naschy explored other avenues such as history, superstition and religion. In the decade of the international slasher craze and the domestic Cine-S movement Naschy staunchly stuck to his guns and produced an El Hombre Lobo installment on the 1970s model. Never below milking production assets, plot contrivances and locations for all they were worth The Return Of the Wolfman arrived a year after his Biblical parable The Traveller (1979) and will look and feel instantly familiar. By this point Naschy had accumulated enough experience in front and behind the camera to direct the productions which he had written. There’s a point, and a valid one at that, to be made that by the time The Werewolf and the Yeti (1975) rolled into cineplexes around the world that the series had strayed too far into the action-adventure direction. If there ever was a time to reinstate the franchise to its gothic horror roots, that time was now. Still, there’s no denying that after a decade-plus of sequels the formula was starting to wear thin. Which isn’t necessarily to its detriment as this one is thoroughly entertaining.

Hungary, 16th century. In the royal court of the Habsburgs Kings of Hungary and the Palatine of Hungary Countess Elizabeth Báthory (Julia Saly, as Jully Saly) is tried and executed. Báthory has been accused to torturing and killing hundreds of girls and women. She’s to be walled up in her chambers in Castle of Csejte in the Little Carpathians near Vág-Ujhely and Trencsén (or present-day Nové Mesto nad Váhom and Trenčín, Slovakia) where she’ll be left to die. Two of her vassals are executed for their involvement in her heinous crimes. Also on trial is Polish nobleman Waldemar Daninsky (Jacinto Molina Álvarez, as Paul Naschy), a known lycanthrope and scourge of the region, is tried for his killing sprees in wolfen form and his association with Báthory. On top of these individual accusations the two are accused of witchcraft, vampirism, and diabolism. A dagger made of silver of the Mayenza chalice is driven through Daninsky’s heart and an iron mask is secured on his face to keep him from biting.

Centuries later grave robbers Veres (Ricardo Palacios) and Yoyo (Rafael Hernández, as Rafael Hernandez) remove the dagger and the mask. Released from bondage the tortured nobleman takes up residence in his castle where he lives with his servant Mircaya (Beatriz Elorrieta). One day parapsychology students Erika (Silvia Aguilar) and Karen (Azucena Hernández, as Azucena Hernandez) arrive in the Carpathians with Barbara (Pilar Alcón, as Pilar Alcon) joining them shortly after once she has removed her old professor (Narciso Ibáñez Menta, as Narciso Ibañez Menta) from the equation. The three are able to locate Báthory’s tomb and the find leads to Erika becoming obsessed with Báthory and falling under her hypnotic spell. Her obsession leads Erika to perform a resurrection ritual. Waldemar Daninsky falls in love with Karen and when he realizes Báthory has been revived and is feeding on the local population he turns against his former mistress vowing to protect the woman he loves at his own peril.

If the above summary didn’t make it abundantly clear The Return of the Wolfman is more of a “greatest hits” rather than a straightforward sequel. After the insanity of The Werewolf and the Yeti (1975) the series had been absent for half a decade. For that reason instead of breaking new ground with the character Naschy borrows liberally from prior key episodes and its contemporary surrounding productions. The mainplot is a slightly condensed composite of The Wolfman versus the Vampire Woman (1971) and The Return Of Walpurgis (1973) with varying shades of Horror Rises From the Tomb (1973), Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll (1974) and Devil's Possessed (1974) as well as assorted individual plot elements from Fury Of the Wolfman (1972) and Doctor Jekyll and the Wolfman (1972). With Beatriz Elorrieta’s Mircaya there’s the obligatory nod to Joseph Sheridan LeFanu’s Carmilla and Pilar Alcón’s Barbara could be seen as a loving wink to British cult icon Barbara Steele, the once-and-future queen of vintage Italo gothic horror. As Waldemar Daninsky had been away for half a decade perhaps a reintroduction was needed. Call it truth in advertising but The Return Of the Wolfman does indeed feel reinvigorated and acts as a symbolic return and a new beginning. To its everlasting credit The Return of the Wolfman opens with a sun-baked pool scene prescient of the Cine-S movement where you halfway expect to see a buck naked Eva Lyberten, Vicky Palma or Andrea Albani splashing around, but somehow never do. On top of that it has a disco theme that makes the theme to Cannibal Ferox (1981) appear sensible.

After the relatively low-key (at least in terms of casting) The Werewolf and the Yeti (1975) the first El Hombre Lobo episode of the eighties is brimming with familiar faces. Naschy was in the habit of casting the most beautiful Spanish women and here there’s the delectable trio of Silvia Aguilar, Julia Saly and Azucena Hernández. Aguilar had been in The Traveller (1979) and the Eurocrime romp Human Beasts (1980) (that also co-starred Julia Saly) and the sex comedy The National Mummy (1981). Saly usually worked behind the scenes as a producer and sporadically acted in that which she produced. In that capacity she could be seen in, the fourth and final Blind Dead episode Night of the Seagulls (1975), The People Who Own the Dark (1976), Inquisition (1977), Demon Witch Child (1978), the sex comedy Madrid al desnudo (1979) and The Cantabrians (1980). Hernández was Miss Catalonia 1977, had briefly worked as a model which naturally led to acting. Prior to her excursion into Spanish horror with El Hombre Lobo she could be seen in the Cine-S precursor Intimate Confessions of Stella (1978), and Bacanal en directo (1979). In the early 1980s Azucena transitioned into acting on the stage, did television and participated in zarzuelas. Her ascension to superstardom was cut tragically short when in the night of 15 to 16 October 1986 she was involved in a serious car accident in Las Rozas de Madrid. In the collision she sustained severe spinal cord injuries that left her paralyzed.

Also present are Beatriz Elorrieta (not using her Beatriz Lacy alias) from Necrophagus (1971), Narciso Ibáñez Menta from The Dracula Saga (1973) and Ricardo Palacios from 1001 Nights (1968) (with Luciana Paluzzi) and Juan Piquer Simón's Journey to the Center of the Earth (1977). In a rather unthankful role as a senior bandit is Luis Barboo, he of The Case of the Scorpion's Tail (1971), Female Vampire (1973), The Loreley's Grasp (1973), Return of the Blind Dead (1973), The Witches Mountain (1973), Night Of the Assassins (1974), The Pyjama Girl Case (1977), Supersonic Man (1979) and Conan the Barbarian (1982). Unfortunately Naschy never found the time and space to cast German sex comedy starlets Ursula Buchfellner, Olivia Pascal, Betty Vergés, Edwige Pierre, Christine Zierl, or Biggi Ludwig in one of his features. Imagine what Paul Naschy could have conjured up with someone like Sabrina Siani, Florence Guérin, Olivia Pascal, Andrea Albani or, god forbid, Maribel Guardia.

In the decade of the American slasher and the Italian gore epic Naschy produced what, by al accounts, was a deliciously baroque gothic horror throwback. His association with Julia Saly allowed Naschy to produce a number of more artistic ventures across a variety of genres. The Saly years was Naschy’s last brush with relevance, both artistic as in terms of box office returns, of any kind. Whereas The Werewolf and the Yeti (1975) was the last vintage offering The Return Of the Wolfman and the Japanese co-production The Beast and the Magic Sword (1983) were the last of the Daninsky saga to turn a profit. From the mid-180s onwards (coinciding with the fall of Cine-S which had begun in 1980) Naschy and Spanish horror at large would experience a dark period from which El Hombre Lobo, the Spanish Lon Chaney never truly recovered. In the following decades only two more Waldemar Daninsky episodes would materialize. For a number of years Spanish fantaterror was nothing but a relic from a distant past until Álex de la Iglesia revived Iberian horror with his The Day Of the Beast (1995).

Plot: two sisters inherit a mansion and convert it into a pension. Hilarity ensues!

In the post-La Liceale (1975) years things weren’t always easy for Gloria Guida. No doubt la Guida had the luxury of picking the roles she was interested in but the general quality of the sex comedies she appeared in was never exactly high to begin with. The Landlord (released domestically as L'affittacamere) is surprisingly tolerable and something of a minor cult hit despite being released at the tail end of Gloria’s turn as the iconic high school girl. Surrounded by some of the best comedic talent of the day, written and directed by some of the country’s most experienced specialists The Landlord might not be a masterwork of high comedy exactly, but that doesn’t make it any less entertaining. It shows extraordinary resilience not to revert to the kind of lowbrow slapstick shenanigans that Lino Banfi (with, or without, his trusty sidekick Alvaro Vitali) often indulges in whenever Gloria isn’t cavorting around in the nude. Even when Guida isn’t naked The Landlord is good fun. This was probably one of the better Guida offerings in those trying and challenging years before To Be Twenty (1978).

In the five-year span from 1974 to 1979 Gloria Guida had worked with some of the best and brightest in the commedia sexy all’Italiana industry. After Fernando Di Leo’s politically-charged To Be Twenty (1978), and having played just about every male wish fullfillment - and fantasy figure, perhaps it was time for Miss Teen Italy 1974 to branch out and spread her wings. Night Nurse (1979) was a semi-serious melodrama with the usual comedic interludes, and when glorious Gloria finally disrobed it was well worth the wait. The Landlord ramps up the situational – and slapstick comedy quotient and there’s at least one good chuckle-inducing moment where Gloria loses her dress and has to make a run across the street in only her translucent white lingerie (complete with stockings and garterbelts, for those who care for such details) in a scene probably “inspired” by the corresponding Nadia Marlowa scene in Sergio Grieco’s fumetti Argoman (1967) and something she would do in The High School Girl Repeating Class (1978) two years later. Fran Fullenwider’s sleepwalking episodes are memorable for all the wrong reasons, and at least she ended up working in Italy for a number of years after her roles in The Mutations (1974) and The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975). If anything but that must have been a nice little opportunity to vacation while she was there. Lino Banfi is suprisingly tolerable (he doesn’t engage in his usual odious slapstick and the mugging is minimal), but it’s really Giuseppe Pambieri who’s responsible for most of the actual comedy. Vittorio Caprioli always elevates every scene he’s in and here it’s no different. The man was a genius. The Landlord is far from quintessential Italo comedy, but it’s far better than most base Gloria Guida swill.

Giorgia Mainardi (Gloria Guida) and her sister Angela (Fran Fullenwider) inherit a mansion in the countryside near Bologna after their aunt-contesa (Flora Carosello) passes away. Once the notary (Dino Emanuelli) and lawyer Mandelli (Giancarlo Dettori) get the necessary paperwork out of the way, the girls agree to convert the building into a pension and name it Pension Paraiso (or Pension Paradise). Angela designs the flyers and when Giorgia distributes flyers across town their new business venture attracts not only the attention of the printer (Aristide Caporale), but also that of judge Damiani (Adolfo Celi), the local arbiter of wisdom and moral values; as well as playboy jockey Anselmo Bresci (Giuseppe Pambieri) and professor Eduardo Settebeni (Luciano Salce). The pension is fully booked almost overnight, and quickly the rumor spreads that Pension Paraiso is not a pension but a casa d'appuntamento, if one is willing to part with 50,000 lire “for a night in paradise” with the hostess, so to speak.

This, of course, attracts the attention of Angela’s boyfriend Lillino Scalabrin (Lino Banfi). Lillino books himself a room, as does professor Eduardo Settebeni. Among the clientele are Pasquale Esposito Ramazzini (Enzo Cannavale) and the honorable judge Vincenzi (Vittorio Caprioli) who gladly pay a pretty penny to have Giorgia over. Also staying overnight are judge Damiani’s wife Rosaria (Marilda Donà) and Settebeni’s wife Adele Bazziconi (Giuliana Calandra), the latter hoping to catch her husband in flagrante delicto and the former to meet her lover Anselmo Bresci. Professor Settebeni has been prospecting the property with eye on converting it into a clinic once he retires. Hilarity ensues when everybody ends up between the sheets with each other, and Mandelli and Giorgia come up with a last-minute plan to salvage the planned sale. In the end Settebeni pays Giorgia 50 milioni lire for the building, allowing Angela and Lillino to marry, and the trio decides to move to a luxurious mansion in Puglia. There Giorgia devises a plan to turn the house into a pension now that she has a strategy.

Like in Night Nurse (1979) a few years later The Landlord director Mariano Laurenti is more concerned with the group dynamic and the interpersonal dramatics than showcasing Gloria Guida’s exposed form, although there’s enough of that too. It wasn’t even the first time Guida had worked with Mariano Laurenti. He would direct her in The High School Girl Repeating Class (1978) two years later, and would do so again in How to Seduce Your Teacher (1979), and The High School Girl, the Devil, and the Holy Water (1979). While she often could be found sharing the screen with buffoons Lino Banfi and Alvaro Vitali whose combined physical-situational comedy is best described as odious, Gloria was fortunate to share the screen with some of Italy’s greatest comedians, be they Vittorio Caprioli, Enzo Cannavale, or Nino Castelnuovo. In case of The Landlord it is Lando Buzzanca. Buzzanca made his debut as a Jewish slave in William Wyler’s big budget peplum epic Ben-Hur (1959), and started to specialize in comedy as early as 1961. He has shared the screen with just about every major and minor Eurocult queen imaginable. Buzzance and Guida shared the screen together just the year before in The Mammon Cat (1975). Fran Fullenwider is mostly remembered around these parts for her small role in The Mutations (1974). What can be said about Giuseppe Pambieri? Some guys have all the luck. He crossed paths with Gloria (and with a pre-Cicciolina Ilona Staller) earlier in La Liceale (1975), with Edwige Fenech in Confessions of a Lady Cop (1976), and with Chai Lee in Yellow Emanuelle (1976) (also with Staller). Vittorio Caprioli was in To Be Twenty (1978) with Guida and Lilli Carati.

By 1979 Gloria Guida was probably in a different headspace, she had been making a living taking her clothes off for about 5 years, and her spreads in Playboy, Playmen, and Skorpio showcased her to those who never caught any of her many comedies. The long and short of it was that anything after would be fairly redundant now that she had shown all in print magazines across the world. She had traveled to Mexico to work with René Cardona Jr. on The Bermuda Triangle (1978) (the sole horror entry in Guida’s filmography). Guida had a brush with relevance with Fernando Di Leo’s brilliant satire To Be Twenty (1978) most of her post-1978 oeuvre gravitates towards slightly more serious or darker toned material. As limited an actress as she was it’s puzzling that Guida never became involved in the giallo (and, by extent, horror) genre like so many of her comedy contemporaries did. In truth by 1978 Gloria was no longer believable as la liceale, and the world was forever denied a movie with her as a l’insegnante. It was evident that Gloria was winding down from acting and two years away from meeting her future-husband Johnny Dorelli. A year later she woud retire from acting and shift focus on her personal life and singing career. The Landlord is the last Guida comedy worth seeing as it sets its sights slightly higher than usual.