Have you ever seen a film, then about half an hour later, thought to yourself 'did I really watch that?' I have - and that film is Duffer, part of the new BFI/Flipside double header that also features the related movie The Moon Over The Valley. Want to know more? Read on.
Duffer is perhaps the headline act, a weird independent Brit flick, dating back to 1971 and the work of Joseph Despins and William Dumaresq. It's a black and white movie set in a declining Notting Hill with pretty much no dialogue spoken by those taking part in it. Everything is spoken as a 'commentary' by Duffer, a lost teenage boy whose life bounces between two domineering presences.
A film that's notorious for one particular scene, but if mad dreams, mad hippies, a psych-inspired Ennio Morricone soundtrack, a late 60s London setting and a good old whodunnit story appeal to you, you'll find much to enjoy in the remastered DVD version of A Lizard in a Woman's Skin.
Mad dreams? That's where we come in. The daughter of a respected politician by the name of Carol Hammond (Florinda Bolkan) is having some, involving walking through a train of nude hippies in a fur coat and a romantic tangle with her female next door neighbour Julia Durer (Anita Strindberg), a hellraiser who loves to throw a psych-soundtracked party for the local hippy community. She's so disturbed by the vivid dreams, she's been seeing a local shrink to talk them through, as well as writing them down. All of that will come in useful soon.
We have raved about Pete Walker and indeed Frightmare before (via a big screen showing), so excuse is if we repeat ourselves with the review of this newly-reissued DVD.
As you'll no doubt be aware, Pete Walker is a British exploitation director whose work has really started to be given the appreciation it deserves in recent years and if we're looking for his most famous/infamous movie, Frightmare is it. It's a British film about cannibalism. But a very British kind of cannibalism.
We've just reviewed the movie, so it seems like a good time to show the much talked-about opening titles for the film Die Screaming Marianne. According to the director, she was dancing to nothing, the music was added in to fit the dancing later!
On paper, it's the film that has it all - a decent plot, a hip cast, Peter Walker directing, Susan George as a go go dancer and a swinging London setting (at least for part of the film). But sadly, Die Screaming Marianne doesn't quite reach the heights you hope for. Although it's certainly an interesting way of spending 99 minutes.
Filmed in 1970, just as swinging London was fading away, it still features names associated with that era - Barry 'Mulberry Bush' Evans, model Judy Huxtable and of course, the previously-mentioned Susan George. George is the Marianne in the title. Or Marianne 'The Hips' McDonald to give her the full name. Those hips being the tools for making a living as a dancer as she constantly moves around Europe, staying one step of the people who have it in for her...her family.
