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Category: Italy

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Plot: Praetorian plans to overthrow increasingly despotic Caesar.

Alfonso Brescia may never be remembered as one of the great Italian exploitation directors but his reputation as a director of competent, albeit seldomly inspired, genre pieces made him a worthy footnote in the country’s cinematic history. That reputation had to start somewhere, and what place better to start than La rivolta dei pretoriani (or Revolt Of the Praetorians). As this was Alfonso’s first directorial feature it sets the stage for The Conqueror Of Atlantis (1965) and as such it is probably the best in the Brescia canon. Not merely for being his first, but because it is genuinely pervaded by a gusto and hunger that would be largely absent in the majority of his oeuvre starting at the dawn of the next decade. Revolt Of the Praetorians meanwhile is testament to the fact that Alfonso Brescia, while not blessed with much of a visual style of his own, was a promising director at one point. What Revolt Of the Praetorians lacks in flair and strong visuals it makes up in sheer enthusiasm.

Over thirty years and about 50 movies legendary journeyman Alfonso Brescia tried his hand at everything from peplum, spaghetti western, Eurowar, giallo, decamerotici, and commedia sexy all'Italiana to science fiction, poliziotteschi, sceneggiata, and barbarians to even the rare action movie. Interestingly, Brescia never partook in the jungle goddess craze following the international success of Liane, Jungle Goddess (1956) or Gungala, Virgin Of the Jungle (1967) back at home. His work underwent a notable dip in quality after Kill Rommel! (1968) and the patently absurd Hell in Normandy (1968) as he rode the dying embers of the waning Eurowar fad. Interestingly he didn’t dabble in the gothic horror revival of the 1970s (renting castles and costumes costs lira, you know). He did direct two surprisingly decent giallo but not a single The Last House on the Left (1972), The Exorcist (1973), or Black Emanuelle (1975) knockoff or any fumetti or Eurospy romps. The only real outlier in his oeuvre was his The Beast In Space (1980), or the concluding chapter of his Star Wars (1977) pentalogy and a liberal space opera reworking Walerian Borowczyk's The Beast (1975). Instead of faded American stars and Italian veterans chewing scenery it had Finnish import Sirpa Lane gobbling on more things than just the scenery. Lane had a blitz career that barely lasted a decade. She was in Roger Vadim's The Assassinated Young Girl (1974), Nazi Love Camp 27 (1977), Malabestia (1978), Joe D'Amato's Papaya: Love Goddess of the Cannibals (1978), and Andrea Bianchi's Carnal Games (1983). Lane’s career nexus undoubtedly was the aforementioned The Beast (1975). By the same token did old Al not contribute to the zombie – and cannibal boom of the 1980s. In a surprising turn of events Iron Warrior (1987) took inspiration from Hong Kong and Homicide In the Blue Light (1992) could have been a potential Eleven Days, Eleven Nights (1987) erotic potboiler had it focused on fabulous Florence Guérin more than its poliziotteschi subplot.

Having worked as an assistant – and second unit director for Mario Caiano, Giuseppe Vari, Mario Amendola, and Silvio Amadio producer Carlo Vassalle gave Alfonso Brescia - who had penned the screenplays for Maciste, Gladiator of Sparta (1964) and The Two Gladiators (1964) - the chance to direct his own peplum with Revolt Of the Praetorians. In his debut feature Brescia tackles a heavily fictionalized take on the historical account of the assassination of Roman emperor Titus Flavius Caesar Domitianus in 96. Domitian was the last member of the Flavian dynasty who reigned from 81 to 96. Domitian’s regime exhibited totalitarian characteristics that curtailed the senate’s power which put him at odds with various senators that viewed him a tyrannic despot. He was eventually assassinated by court officials and succeeded by his advisor Nerva. Revolt Of the Praetorians does indeed relay that basic account, but throws in a surprise or two along the way. After all the sword-and-sandal epic was in dying embers by this point. On top of that he was alotted a faded and fading American lead (Richard Harrison) that had found a footing in the Italian schlock market, some noted domestic character actors (Piero Lulli, Giuliano Gemma, and Fedele Gentile) in key supporting roles, and a bevy of national and international babes (Moira Orfei, Paola Pitti, and Ivy Holzer).

In AD 96 Emperor Domiziano (Piero Lulli) has sunk to such depths of paranoia that a multitude of daily executions have become the norm. His concubine Artamne (Moira Orfei) believes what Caesar does is just and assists him whenever possible. Imperial Praetorian Guard Valerio Rufo (Richard Harrison), young senator Marcus Cocceio Nerva (Giuliano Gemma) and elder patrician Fabio Lucilio (Fedele Gentile) realize that Caesar is becoming increasingly unhinged and unpredictable and that his reign of terror will eventually mean the end of Rome. The three decide to hatch a plan to relief Domiziano of his power and install a new, just Caesar in his stead. Helped by court jester Elpidion (Salvatore Furnari) in their efforts, who Caesar believes to be on his side, the forces of the Emperor are assailed by the agile Red Wolf, a masked caped crusader and a defender of justice. Things take a turn for the personal when Domiziano’s preferred soldier (Bruno Ukmar) and his forces threaten life and limb of Valerio’s girlfriend Lucilla (Paola Pitti, as Paola Piretti). With the menace of Red Wolf and intrigue in his court Domiziano senses that something is afoot and orders the rebellion struck down, at any cost…

It’s peculiar how many plot points Brescia would recycle in the years following Revolt Of the Praetorians, no matter what the genre. The following year’s The Conqueror Of Atlantis (1965) had Piero Lulli conspiring with Hélène Chanel. The masked crusader would be used again in The Colt Is My Law (1965) and Amazons vs Supermen (1973). Likewise does one of the main characters in Battle Of the Amazons (1973) only spring into action until the villains force his hand by threatening something near and dear to him. The general plot outline of Revolt Of the Praetorians would be recycled almost in full for Cross Mission (1988) that saw Riccardo Acerbi turn against his despotic master Maurice Poli who had his own dwarven conjurer with Nelson de la Rosa. Revolt Of the Praetorians benefits greatly from having a screenplay written not by Brescia himself, but by Gian Paolo Callegari. He had writing credits going as far as the 1940s and would direct the spy caper Agent Sigma 3 – Mission Goldwather (1967) and the early decamerotici Hot Nights of the Decameron (1972), among many others. Pier Ludovico Pavoni was obviously an infinitely superior cinematographer compared to later frequent Brescia collaborators Giancarlo Ferrando, Fausto Rossi, and Silvio Fraschetti.

Compared to the surrealist The Conqueror Of Atlantis (1965) the next year Revolt Of the Praetorians is remarkably conservative and restrained. Which doesn’t mean that old Alfonso doesn’t fill it to the gills with elements you aren’t likely to see anywhere else. Revolt Of the Praetorians is a tale of court intrigue, but also one where virginal maidens are threatened to be lowered in a vat of molten lead, where a little person commandeers an army of insurgents, and where a single Praetorian fights waves of enemies with his hands tied behind his back. Moira Orfei wears beautiful gowns and changes wigs in every virtually every scene she’s in. Paola Pitti is a virginal maiden in the mould of Sylva Koscina in The Labors of Hercules (1957). Piero Lulli and Moira Orfei were both peplum regulars and Lulli would play a tyrant again in The Conqueror Of Atlantis (1965). Bruno Ukmar would turn up in Brescia’s spaghetti westerns in the ensueing years.

Ivy Holzer would later end up playing one of the leads in Samao, Queen Of the Jungle (1968) (alongside Edwige Fenech, Femi Benussi, and Roger Browne). Moira Orfei came from a family of circus performers and was known as Moira of the Elephants. As an actress she was a peplum veteran having appeared in a slew of sword-and-sandal epics from 1960 onward. Orfei was in Ursus (1961) (alongside a young Soledad Miranda) and would later figure in Scent of a Woman (1974) and the Lucio Fulci gothic horror spoof Dracula in the Provinces (1975) (with Lando Buzzanca and an all-star female cast including Sylva Koscina, Christa Linder, Ilona Staller and Valentina Cortese). The Orfei family runs circuses to this day. Harrison had something of a career revival in Hong Kong twenty years later with his association with Godfrey Ho Chi-Keung (何誌強). Unfortunately Brescia wouldn’t be able to hold on to the services of director of photography Pier Ludovico Pavoni and the great majority of his subsequent output would be plagued by absolutely hideous cinematography. Likewise would many of Brescia’s later films come with abysmal scores, usually studio leftovers from Marcello Giombini.

There’s a sense of vitality to Revolt Of the Praetorians that makes it an enjoyable slice of low-budget peplum pulp. Brescia might not have been one of Italy’s more colorful or talented exploitation directors, but his early work possesses a sense of character and vigor that his later oeuvre direly lacks. In the mid-1960s there was still hope for Brescia to cultivate what little potential he had as a director. If anything Revolt Of the Praetorians proved that Alfonso Brescia could be counted on to helm modestly budgeted productions that would be able to turn a reasonable profit. Of course no one in the right mind should see Revolt Of the Praetorians voluntarily, but it’s a delectable slice of peplum cheese from a director who would in less than a decade forth would be churning out some of the most low-hanging celluloid fruit imagineable. It’s hard to fathom that Revolt Of the Praetorians came from the same director that graced the world with nearly indefensible cross-genre pulp as Amazons vs Supermen (1973) and the delirious Star Odyssey (1979). In the twilight years of his career Brescia would channel the spirit of Revolt Of the Praetorians with his illicit Ator sequel Iron Warrior (1987). That he followed that one up with the double-whammy of Cross Mission (1988) (where about the only good thing was Brigitte Porsche) and the erotic thriller Homicide In the Blue Light (1992) (that not even a frequently naked Florence Guérin could save) speaks volumes of just how much a hack Brescia truly was. Once upon a time Alfonso Brescia had some mild promise as a workhorse exploitation director and mercenary pulp specialist. Revolt Of the Praetorians is all the proof you need. Tread lightly, regardless.

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Plot: who’s the mysterious woman in Anna’s dreams? Is she dead or alive?

As with all things in life, timing is everything. Metempsyco (or Metempsychosis, released in France as Le manoir maudit or The Cursed Mansion, in Germany as Die Bestie von Schloß Monte Christo or The Beast of Monte Cristo Castle, and in the US and on the international market as Tomb Of Torture) is a minor entry in the Italo gothic horror cycle of the sixties and by no means a classic or essential. For its 1964 North American release it was put on a grindhouse/drive-in double-bill with Cave Of the Living Dead (1964). On release it had to contend with far stronger and more compelling domestic genre exercises and it understandably fell through the cracks. Over half a century of critical examination has not revealed any meaningful insights only attesting that this was rightly ignored.

No wonder that in the annals of Italian horror and Eurocult at large Tomb Of Torture is but a forgotten footnote. The sixties were an especially prolific and prosperous time for Italian horror. The decade had opened with Renato Polselli’s The Vampire and the Ballerina (1960), Piero Regnoli’s The Playgirls and the Vampire (1960), and Giorgio Ferroni’s Mill Of the Stone Women (1960). In 1963 it was preceded by Mario Bava’s proto-giallo The Girl That Knew Too Much (1963) (Bava would codify and innovate the giallo subgenre along with Dario Argento, Luciano Ercoli, and Sergio Martino) and a few months after that, The Whip and the Body (1963); Riccardo Freda’s The Ghost (1963), the entertaining The Blancheville Monster (1963), and Antonio Margheriti’s The Virgin Of Nuremberg (1963). A year later there were Camillo Mastrocinque’s Terror in the Crypt (1964) and Polselli’s The Monster of the Opera (1964). In short, in the glory days of gothic horror competition at the domestic box office was stiff and Tomb Of Torture was swamped by better and more memorable examples of the form. While not exactly terrible or lacking Tomb Of Torture simply missed the innate starpower and visual grandeur (a few scattered artsy shots here and there notwithstanding) to become nothing more than a pleasant little genre piece overshadowed by far superior exercises in the genre.

And who produced and directed Tomb Of Torture is equally as mystifying as the movie itself. As near as we can tell this was the first thing Francesco Campitelli ever produced and on the basis of it he carved out a respectable career as a writer and production manager. Campitelli is known around these parts for co-writing the Spanish co-producton Two Males For Alexa (1971) (with Rosalba Neri, Emma Cohen, and Pilar Velázquez). Here he also doubles as director of photography. The director behind Tomb Of Torture was mountaineer, climber, and sometime pulp novelist Antonio Boccacci. Boccacci was a graduate in mathematics, a teacher, and avid alpinist. In fact he’s credited with inventing Val di Mello climbing, he was one of the first to scale the valley walls along the Luna Nascente trail at the Scoglio delle Metamorfosi, and he’s said to be a pioneer in the field of bouldering in Italy. His extensive experience in mountaineering and ski mountaineering led to a steady career in writing specialised guides of all kinds on the subject alongside the occassional fiction novel. For whatever reason somebody apparently thought that this was reason enough for Boccacci to try his hand at screenwriting. In that capacity Boccacci co-wrote the peplum Revolt of the Mercenaries (1960), the adventure film Rampage Of Evil (1961), today’s subject Tomb Of Torture, and the Alfonso Brescia spaghetti western Days Of Violence (1967) (again with LWO favorite Neri, Spanish almost-star Beba Loncar, and Italian professional warm body Bruna Beani). After this Boccacci returned to paperback writing and it’s anybody’s guess how popular (or respected, if he was at all) he was in Italian literary circles.

1910, somewhere in Europe. Schoolgirls Esther (Emy Eco) and Cathy (Terry Thompson) have taken to invading a local grand castle where Countess Irene (Annie Alberti, as Annie Albert) disappeared under mysterious circumstances some twenty years earlier. The countess is presumed dead but her body was never recovered. The two girls are spooked when current inhabitant Countess Elizabeth (Flora Carosello, as Elizabeth Queen) materializes out of the shadows and warns them of the horrors the castle holds. The two girls try to make their escape but they are stalked and murdered by deformed, droopy-eyed hunchback Hugo (Bernard Blay or Fred Pizzot). First on the scene of the crime is inspector Dobson (Bernard Blay or Fred Pizzot) and he’s mystified. For the last several weeks 20-year-old ingénue Anna (Annie Alberti, as Annie Albert) has been haunted by strange dreams of a woman looking just like her dying in a shadowy torture dungeon. Doctor Darnell (Adriano Micantoni, as Thony Maky) believes that bringing Anna to the castle she sees in her nightmares will cure her of her affliction. In the castle Anna becomes transfixed by the portrait of the dead countess. Journalist George (Marco Mariani, as Mark Marian) is visiting the village to report on the disappearance and murder of the two schoolgirls. In complete happenstance he meets Anna when his car overheats and he’s in need of assistance. George not only is instantly smitten with Anna, he’s intrigued by the strange story she tells. Meanwhile, Sikh prince Raman (Antonio Boccacci) of some unspecified Hindu kingdom has returned believing Anna to be a reincarnation of his long lost Irene. Raman was romantically involved with Elisabeth but callously cast her aside once he laid eyes on Irene. As a scorned woman Elisabeth is none too happy with Raman’s return and his inquiring after his former lover. What horrors dwell in Irene’s abode? Does Anna really see ghosts, and who’s the mysterious force encased within that suit of armor? Can old man Darnell, George, and inspector Dobson save Anna from the certain doom that awaits her?

To make matters worse, not only has Tomb Of Torture the most unlikely producer and director duo, it reeks with the vile stench of good old nepotism. Boccacci not only casted his wife Flora Carosello in one of the lead roles but does the same for Emy Eco (or Emilia Eco, the sister of writer and academic Umberto Eco) in what probably could be construed as a favor from one academic to another. The biggest stars here are arguably Marco Mariani, he of The Monster of the Opera (1964) and sometime fumetti novel star Annie Alberti. Some allege that the script was co-written by Giovanni Simonelli, the son of Giorgio Simonelli. Most contemporary sources attribute it to Simonelli the elder. However Giovanni seems the more logical choice given that the Anglicised moniker listed here is Johnny (and not George) Seemonell. There’s a tendency in the blogosphere to lambast the title but Metempsyco (or Metempsychosis, the supposed transmigration of the soul into a new body at the moment of death) perfectly encapsulates what the movie’s about. The exteriors were filmed at Orsini Castle (restored and housing an exclusive hotel) in Nerola with interiors shot at Palazzo Borghese in Artena. Since Italian imports were popular on the North American market everybody hides behind Anglo-Saxon pseudonyms. It was a very common practice in Italian exploitation at the time and one that would persevere over the ensuing decades. Tomb Of Torture is not nearly as good (or as memorable) as the English-language title would have you believe, but it’s not exactly bad either. It’s just very utilitarian. "Sex or terror?", asks the Italian promotional poster. Either seems to be scarce, regardless.

That Tomb Of Torture is a relic of bygone, less enlightened time becomes painfully clear pretty much from the onset. It begins with that old chestnut of two rebellious schoolgirls (they’re more college-age rather than high school) being chased around the bowels of a creepy castle before ending up tortured and finally killed. Then there’s Antonio Boccacci in brownface and turban trying his darndest to pass himself off as a Sikh prince (and failing at it spectacularly) and Flora Carosello as his scorned former lover. Annie Alberti is an attractive enough a lead but she was no Graziella Granata and even second-stringer Hammer ladies were better on average. The first act is actually surprisingly effective and atmospheric with an extended tour through the torture dungeon. Unfortunately that’s for the most part undone by the unintentionally loopy cartoon music that Armando Sciascia insists on during the romantic scenes that could have come from a Laura Efrikian rom com. Francesco Campitelli acquits himself well enough and actually manages to line up a few artsy shots here and there. The special effects make-up is remarkably gory and well-realized (especially the hunchback) for the time and budget this was made in and on. Overall Tomb Of Torture is far from bad but it’s understandable why it was ostensibly ignored when it was originally released.