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Category: Marino Masé

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Plot: the night Muriel (and her lover) came out of the grave.

The crown jewel in Barbara Steele’s conquest of Mediterranean horror cinema is in all likelihood this, Nightmare Castle, Mario Caiano’s epitome of gothic horror perfection. In Nightmare Castle (released back at home as Amanti d'oltretomba or Lovers From Beyond the Grave, it’s anybody’s guess how they came up with the international market title) Steele headlines a small cast of Italian character actors alongside Swiss shlock specialist Paul Müller and German bombshell Helga Liné. Barbara Steele is the obvious focus (and rightly so), Helga Liné steals every scene she’s in (and rightly so, even in 1965 it was clear she was destined for greater things) and Paul Müller plays another unscrupulous scheming man of science. Nightmare Castle is Italo gothic horror par excellence. Helmed by seasoned professionals it’s thick on that charnel atmosphere and blessed with breathtaking monochrome photography that is among the best in this particular subgenre. Needless to say, it’s probably not only one of the best in Barbara Steele’s Italian canon but an undiluted (and undisputed) classic on its own merits.

British actress Barbara Steele had been acting since 1958, but it wouldn’t be until Mario Bava’s The Mask Of Satan (1960) that she became associated with gothic horror. In 1960 Steele was slated to appear in the Don Siegel directed Elvis Presley vehicle Flaming Star, but accounts on her dismissal from the production differ depending on who you want to believe. In the six years from 1960 to 1966 Steele appeared in nine Italian gothic horror movies, including The Mask Of Satan (1960), The Pit and the Pendulum (1961), The Horrible Secret of Dr. Hichcock (1962), and The Ghost (1963). Further appearances include a pair of gothic horrors from director Antonio Margheriti with The Long Hair of Death (1964) and Castle Of Blood (1964). Her tenure in Italian horror concluded with Five Graves For A Medium (1965) and An Angel For Satan (1966). Nightmare Castle is widely considered to be among Steele’s best pictures, and with good reason. Like Castle Of Blood from the year before Nightmare Castle is thick on that Mediterranean atmosphere and the monochrome photography is absolutely stunning. Just as in Mario Bava’s The Mask Of Satan (1960) half a decade earlier and in Antonio Margheriti’s The Long Hair of Death (1964) the year prior Steele plays a double role. During the 1970s Steele appeared in Roger Corman produced, Jonathan Demme directed women-in-prison movie Caged Heat (1974). Our personal introduction to queen Steele happened in the debut feature Shivers (1975) from future body horror specialist David Cronenberg. While we realized her historical importance to horror at large we weren’t yet far and deep enough into our cinematic odyssey to have seen any of her Italian work. In 1978 Steele had roles in the Louis Malle feature Pretty Baby as well as the American killer fish flick Piranha from director Joe Dante.

Dr. Stephen Arrowsmith (Paul Müller, as Paul Miller) is a man of science living in the opulent Hampton Castle with his wife Lady Muriel Hampton (Barbara Steele, as Barbara Steel) and their butler Jonathan (Giuseppe Addobbati, as John McDouglas). The Arrowsmith marital union has eroded to such a degree that both partners can’t stand the sight of each another. Stephen for the longest time has suspected his wife to be involved in an extramarital affair with gardener/stable hand David (Rik Battaglia). To confirm his suspicious Dr. Arrowsmith announces that he will be embarking on a week-long trip to Edinburgh, Scotland to attend a science conference. The business trip is a fabrication on his part and merely a ruse to lure Muriel and her lover into the open. Arrowsmith is that special kind of miscreant, the sort not burdened by trivialities such as morals or anything in the way of scruples. The doctor has been conducting experimental research using electricity to preserve blood on lab animals in his castle laboratory and his convoluted scheme will finally allow him to experiment on human subjects. Muriel’s affair with the gardener is mere pretext for Arrowsmith to obtain his desired test subjects. That these are his adulterous spouse and her lover both of him he gets to subject to a regiment of elongated torture before killing and disposing of their lifeless bodies. Such are the grim spoils of the present situation.

Having tortured and killed both adulterers Arrowsmith cuts out and preserves their hearts, disposing of the rest of them in the incinerator and dumping their ashes into the pot of his favorite houseplant. In a daring experiment he transfuses Muriel’s electrically preserved blood into his cadaverous maid (and assistant) Solange (Helga Liné, as Helga Line) instantly restoring her appearance to that of a twenty-year-old. What Arrowsmith soon comes to realize is that Muriel has left her wealth not to him, but to her blonde sister Jenny (Barbara Steele, as Barbara Steel), who has a long history of mental instability and spent most of her adolescent life locked away in an unspecified insane asylum. Being the reptilian creep that he is, Arrowsmith promptly invites Jenny to Castle Hampton for an extended stay, and immediately starts courting her. Jenny eventually falls for his advances and the courtship ends in marriage.

Now having access again to the Hampton’s considerable wealth Arrowsmith – a man of low moral fiber, to say the least – then initiates the second part of his unscrupulous scheme, one that will conveniently dispose him of Jenny but will leave him with the castle, the Hampton wealth and his mistress Solange to his name. The doctor concocts a hallucinogen and instructs Solange to spike Jenny’s bedtime brandy that very night. Stephen thinks his devious scheme is working when Jenny hallucinates/dreams very strange that night and almost ends up strangling him. The next day he finds out that Solange accidentally mixed up the vials in his laboratory and administered Jenny a harmless sugar solution instead. The doctor’s plan is panning out even smoother than he had anticipated despite Solange’s minor mix-up. With Jenny’s tenuous grasp on her sanity a writ summoning her old psychiatrist to Hampton Castle is hastily dispatched.

The arrival of Dr. Derek Joyce (Marino Masé, as Lawrence Clift) lifts Jenny’s spirits, but Stephen and Solange come to understand that there’s something strange afoot in Castle Hampton when not only the mentally unstable Jenny, but also Dr. Joyce is witness to blood dripping from the pot of Arrowsmith’s favorite houseplant, the dual heartbeats resounding in the walls, sudden chill drafts where there logically couldn’t be any and a woman’s laughter echoing down the corridors. Arrowsmith seriously begin to contemplate the possibility that Castle Hampton might actually be haunted. The very story he planted in Jenny’s mind to sunder what little remnants of her sanity she still had left. However, Jenny it is not the target of the hauntings, rather than their conduit, their vessel of convenience and their chosen instrument of evil. The hauntings continue in Hampton Castle until one fateful evening the malign spirits of the deceased return from beyond in the form of the mutilated corpses of Muriel and David. Physical manifestations of Muriel and David that will not be able to rest until they have meted out punishment commensurate to the fate they underwent. They assure Stephen and Solange that they will inflict the same suffering upon them as revenge.

The plot is a combination of some of Steele’s earlier Italian productions from around this time. The plot is nearly identical to that of The Ghost (1963) from Ricardo Freda. In The Ghost (1963) Steele and her lover murder her doctor husband and his vengeful ghost comes to haunt them. Here Steele and her lover are murdered by her doctor husband and their ghosts come to haunt him. Like in Castle Of Blood (1965) Steele once again plays a jilted, duplicitous lover that comes to haunt her former paramour as a ghost. Five Graves for a Medium (1965) was more or less the same as Castle Of Blood (1965). Once again Steele plays a double role as both the wronged lover and her blonde, mentally unstable sister like she did in The Mask of Satan (1960). The new bride being terrorized by her husband and maid was lifted straight out of The Horrible Secret of Dr. Hichcock (1962). Mario Caiano and writer Fabio De Agostini pull out all the stops and fully commit to the madness on display. The duo is fully aware of how completely silly the story and entertain the viewer at every turn with beautiful shots of either Steele or Liné to distract from how the story is a pastiche of well-worn gothic horror clichés. Even by 1965 standards these were just that.

The other implacable Eurocult pillar here is Swiss actor Paul Müller. He made uncredited appearances in respectable productions as El Cid (1961), and the Biblical epic Barabbas (1961) before becoming a pillar in continental European exploitation cinema - primarily in Italy and Spain - through turns in Mario Bava’s I Vampiri (1956), Amando de Ossorio’s Fangs Of the Living Dead (1969) (with Rosanna Yanni and Diana Lorys), and he was a fixture in Jesús Franco productions in the late 1960s and 1970s with the spy-action romp The Devil Came From Akasava (1971), the psychedelic Vampyros Lesbos (1971), She Killed In Ecstasy (1971), the feverish Nightmares Come at Night (1972) and Eugénie (1973). as well as Tinto Brass’ ode to ass Paprika (1991) (with the ineffable Debora Caprioglio). Marino Masé debuted in the peplum spoof The Rape Of the Sabines (1961) (alongside Roger Moore as well as Giorgia Moll, Rosanna Schiaffino, and Mariangela Giordano), and acted in, among many others, Lady Frankenstein (1971), the giallo The Red Queen Kills Seven Times (1972), Emanuelle Around the World (1977), Luigi Cozzi's Contamination (1980), the Dario Argento giallo Tenebre (1982), Ruggero Deodato's An Uncommon Crime (1987) and (believe it or not) Francis Ford Coppola’s crime epic The Godfather: Part III (1990).

While it was in the rather and forgettable The Blancheville Monster (1963) that Helga Liné scored her first lead role, it was Nightmare Castle that solidified her position in the Mediterranean horror pantheon. Liné was a contortionist and dancer of German descent that debuted in cinema in 1941, but her career wouldn’t take off until moving to Madrid in 1960. In the permissive seventies Liné appeared in rustic gothic horror pieces as Horror Express (1972) and Amando de Ossorio’s The Loreley's Grasp (1974). Liné collaborated with Paul Naschy on Horror Rises From The Tomb (1973) and The Mummy's Revenge (1975) as well with León Klimovsky on The Dracula Saga (1973) and The Vampires Night Orgy (1973). Liné also was among the ensemble cast in Terence Young’s peplum sendup The Amazons (1973). Late in her career Liné had maternal roles in mainstream movies from Pedro Almodóvar as Labyrinth of Passion (1982) and Law of Desire (1987) where she played the mother of Antonio Banderas’ character. Even though she was fifty at the time Liné appeared in nudity-heavy exploitation titles from José Ramón Larraz such as Madame Olga’s Pupils (1981) and the Rosemary's Baby (1968) rip-off Black Candles (1982), as well as the Claude Mulot directed Harry Alan Towers and Playboy Channel co-production Black Venus (1983) (with Nubian nymph Josephine Jacqueline Jones and French sexbomb Florence Guérin).

Mario Caiano was an exploitation workhorse who got his start in peplum and spaghetti western and who occassionally dabbled in poliziotteschi and other genres. He was behind the minor giallo Eye In the Labyrinth (1972) and the il sadiconazista (or Nazisploitation) Nazi Love Camp 27 (1977) (with Sirpa Lane). For Nightmare Castle had the good fortune to shoot on location in one of Italy’s more famous horror castles, the Villa Parisi estate in Frascati, Rome. As such Nightmare Castle and director of photography Enzo Barboni take full advantage of the castle and its ornate interiors. Special effects and make-up artist Duilio Giustini was a veteran of spaghetti western and Eurospy by the time he arrived here. Along these parts he’s known for his work on the Belgian gothic horror The Devil’s Nightmare (1971) and the Gloria Guida evergreen Blue Jeans (1975). By the time he came to compose the score Ennio Morricone had written music for a number of comedies and worked with Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza (G.I.N.C.). The same year he would explode to international fame through his association with Sergio Leone and the first of his Dollars Trilogy, For a Few Dollars More (1965). Just like his contemporary Riz Ortolani, Morricone was one of the busiest composers around. Befitting of the kind of gothic that it is the organ score for Nightmare Castle portentous, melodramatic and pompous where and when it matters.

Nightmare Castle is a loving valentine to Barbara Steele at her most desirable. Indeed, Enzo Barboni and his camera follows her every movement, every expression and hangs on to her every word. Steele had become such a respected figurehead of the Italian gothic that by the following decade many a starlet – Italian, British and otherwise - vied for her throne. Once she vacated her gothic horror throne in the early 1970s many tried to usurp her position as queen of the Italian gothic. Among the many heirs presumptive British beauty Candace Glendenning and German icon Helga Liné count definitely among our personal favorites. For director Caiano it always served as a tribute to miss Steele and the work she did exporting the atmospheric Italian gothic horror to audiences around the world. There isn’t enough to recommend about Nightmare Castle other than seeing with virgin eyes for the first time.

Published on Leave a comment on Lady Frankenstein (1971)

Plot: the sins of the father shall be visited upon the daughter.

Lady Frankenstein is another of the many Italian gothic horror potboilers with the always enchanting Rosalba Neri in the titular role. Based upon a story by Dick Randall, and written by, among others, Edward Di Lorenzo and directed by Mel Welles (and an uncredited Aureliano Luppi), Lady Frankenstein boasts an international cast including faded Hollywood star Joseph Cotten, exploitation regulars Paul Müller, Herbert Fux, and Mickey Hargitay. Lady Frankenstein stays true to the basic tenets of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein novel and oozes with enough rustic gothic horror charm, and a surprising amount of Neri nudity, to compensate for the somewhat lackluster script and a distinct lack of striking visuals.

Director Mel Welles had worked for exploitation mogul Roger Corman for over a decade by the time Lady Frankenstein was put into production. According to an interview with Welles in the 2007 Louis Paul tome Tales from the Cult Film Trenches one of the producers – Harry Cushing, a well-to-do American living in Italy - had a thing for Neri and built Lady Frankenstein, originally from a script called Lady Dracula, as a project specifically with her in mind. Neri did not reciprocate Cushing’s advances. When some of the financing fell through at the last minute Roger Corman stepped in. Despite not having a solid script when principal photography began, and the involvement of no less than six writers (Umberto Borsato, Edward Di Lorenzo, Egidio Gelso, Aureliano Luppi, Dick Randall, and Mel Welles), Lady Frankenstein never devolves into incoherence despite a minimum of plot.

In Lady Frankenstein Baron Frankenstein (Joseph Cotten) and his assistant Dr. Charles Marshall (Paul Müller) have at long last mastered the ability to revive an exanimate subject. In a revolutionary transplant, lifted wholesale from The Giant Of Metropolis (1961) and later repurposed in Marino Girolami’s cynical cross-genre exercise Zombi Holocaust (1981) a decade after this pompous gothic horror romp, the two scientists will place the brain of the soon-to-be-hung Jack Morgan (Petar Martinov) in a recombined body they prepared earlier. Lecherous vulture, part-time grave robber and full-time creep, Tom Lynch (Herbert Fux) is overjoyed at the idea of his old enemy finally becoming of use to him. Lynch assists both scientists in bringing their experiments to fruition as long as there is a monetary compensation. Throwing caution to the wind, and against Marshall’s protests, Frankenstein senior is adamant in commencing the experiment regardless of the circumstances.

At that point the Baron’s college graduate daughter Tania (Rosalba Neri, as Sara Bay), now bearing a degree in medicine from the same faculty that ousted her father many years prior, arrives at the old homestead. Despite a quarter century age gap the middle-aged Marshall has been pining for Tania for several years. Tania immediately puts her comely charms to use, winding Marshall around her finger, while getting wind of her father’s dabbling in illicit necro-biologic experiments. As the Creature (Peter Whiteman) becomes animate Marshall leaves to summon Tania to witness the resurrection. This leaves the geriatric Frankenstein to the mercy of the Creature’s super-human strength. As Tania and Marshall return to the laboratory they find the lifeless body of Frankenstein the elder, and the Creature having fled into the nearby woods. Soon the Creature’s rampage prompts an investigation by Captain Harris (Mickey Hargitay). In a three-way power struggle for survival Tania, Lynch, and Harris attempt to outwit each other.

As it turns out Tania does admire Marshall, but not on the way he probably imagined, or desires. Tania has taken a liking to feebleminded but able-bodied stableboy Thomas (Marino Masé) and by her reasoning Thomas’ frame with Marshall’s brain as a guide would form the ultimate countermeasure against the elder Frankenstein’s homicidal Creature. Tania’s seduction (and corruption) of Thomas foreshadows Neri’s work in The Devil’s Wedding Night two years later. In a plot scribbled from James Whale’s The Bride Of Frankenstein (1935) Tania builds a second creature not for her late father’s Creature, but for herself. “Who is this irresistible creature who has an insatiable love for the dead?" asked the poster and Tania, in the form of seductress Rosalba Neri, fits that descriptor like no other. To nobody’s surprise Frankenstein the younger is forced to betray her creation, and Lady Frankenstein ends in a sizzling climax, both literal and figurative, that leaves Harris, thwarted at every turn, picking up the pieces.

Joseph Cotten, an American actor in his twilight years, had appeared in Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane (1941), and The Third Man (1949), Alfred Hitchcock’s Shadow Of A Doubt (1943), the Richard Fleischer science fiction classic Soylent Green (1973) with Charlton Heston, Airport ’77 (1977) alongside George Kennedy and Gone With the Wind (1939) star Olivia de Havilland, and Michael Cimino’s big-budget western fiasco Heaven’s Gate (1980). From 1971 onward Cotten frequently appeared in low-budget Italian exploitation shlock. In 1969 Rosalba Neri had figured into a trio of Jesús Franco productions with the likes of Luciana Paluzzi, Maria Rohm, and Christopher Lee but also starred in the offshore giallo Top Sensation with Edwige Fenech. Neri appeared in the Fernando di Leo giallo The Beast Kills in Cold Blood (1971). A year after Lady Frankenstein Neri starred another gothic horror piece with L'Amante del Demonio (1972), and The French Sex Murders (1972) with Anita Ekberg and Evelyne Kraft, later of The Mighty Peking Man (1977) and Lady Dracula (1977). In 1973 Neri graced the screen, alongside Mark Damon, in the gothic horror throwback The Devil’s Wedding Night.

Swiss actor Paul Müller made uncredited appearances in respectable productions as El Cid (1961), and Barabbas (1961) before becoming a pillar in continental European exploitation cinema, primarily in Italy and Spain, through turns in Mario Bava’s I Vampiri (1956), Mario Caiano’s Nightmare Castle (1965) with Helga Liné, Amando de Ossorio’s Fangs Of the Living Dead (1969) with Rosanna Yanni, and in the Jesús Franco productions Eugénie (1970), Vampyros Lesbos (1971), The Devil Came From Akasava (1971) and Nightmares Come at Night (1972) with Soledad Miranda, and Diana Lorys. Hungarian actor Mickey Hargitay, father of Emmy and Golden Globe winner Mariska from long-running police procedural Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999), ended up in the Italian exploitation industry and had appeared in Revenge Of the Gladiators (1964), Bloody Pit Of Horror (1965), and The Reincarnation Of Isabel (1973). Marino Masé debuted in the peplum comedy The Rape Of the Sabines (1961) with Roger Moore, and appeared in Nightmare Castle (1965), Emanuelle Around the World (1977), Luigi Cozzi’s Contamination (1980), and Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather: Part III (1990).

Herbert Fux was a veteran of German TV and cinema, having appeared in popular series as Tatort (1972), Der Alte (1980), der Bergdoktor (1992), and mainstream cinema hits such as The Three Musketeers (1993) and Astérix & Obélix contre César (1999). In exploitation circles he appeared in some of the Kommissar X action/adventure movies through out the 1960s, and a few Tiroler sex comedies from Franz Josef Gottlieb and Alois Brummer in the 1970s, and uncredited in the budget-deprived Lady Dracula (1977) opposite of Evelyne Kraft. Fux portrayed the Devil that copulated with nubile starlet Susan Hemingway in the Jesús Franco production Love Letters Of A Portuguese Nun (1977). Fux was dubbed in the English language version by director Mel Welles, himself an experienced actor.

One of the more interesting aspects of Lady Frankenstein is its pronounced feminist angle, which isn’t strange considering its release that coincided with the Women’s Liberation movement that was gaining momentum in 1971. Tania Frankenstein is, for good or ill, an emancipated, highly intelligent, determined, coldly calculating woman that will stop at absolutely nothing - including murder - to finish her late father’s experiments on reanimating the dead, or acquire the man she craves. From the moment she is introduced, and especially after her father’s passing near the half hour mark, all men, in one way or the other, become subservient to her whims. Tania’s ambition and desire to vindicate her father’s theories eventually pushes her into the same god-like madness that can only lead to death and destruction. As the only character worthy of an arc it is Tania that becomes the crux in the travails in each of her male co-players. The men that circle around Tania are either bottomfeeders (Lynch), boytoys (Thomas), useless idiots (Harris) or willing accomplices (Marshall). In a Freudian slip that results in her killing Tania exclaims “Thomas!” in a particular passionate lovemaking session with the Marshall-Thomas creature, unleashing jealous rage in the latent Marshall part.

While not among the worst of Frankenstein adaptations Lady Frankenstein is emblematic of gothic horror of the day. It's portentous and heavy on that rustic Hammer Horror atmosphere but on a fraction of the budget. The distinguished presence of Joseph Cotten and the always alluring Rosalba Neri can only carry the rudimentary script so far. Like Spanish production Necrophagus (1971) it is thick in atmosphere, but seldom yields any heart-stopping visuals or arresting imagery. It's functional and competently directed, but rarely inspired as such. There's enough Neri nudity but Lady Frankenstein never aspires to the pompous erotic heights of The Devil’s Wedding Night (1973). Rosalba Neri had appeared in better movies, both before and after, Lady Frankenstein. The score by Alessandro Alessandroni is majestic and gloomy in equal measure. Neri's presence might make it of interest to Italian gothic horror fans, or completists - but Lady Frankenstein probably wouldn't be remembered today if it weren't for her portraying the titular character.