Sinbad and the Caliph of Baghdad

Director: Pietro Francisci
Writer: Pietro Francisci
Producer: Angelo Faccenna
Cast: Robert Malcolm, Sonia Wilson, Spartaco Conversi
Country: Italy/Egypt
Year of release: 1973
Reviewed from: UK VHS

Isn’t it great that, in these days when everything seems to be available, when The Deathless Devil is on the racks in Tower Records, when Hanuman vs Seven Ultraman can be obtained with a handful of mouse-clicks for less than the price of two pints, that there are still old films awaiting rediscovery? One such is this little gem.

It is also a pleasure to find films which remain gloriously uncertain of their own titles. In this case, there are three questions. Is ‘caliph’ spelt with a PH or an F? Is ‘Baghdad’ spelt with a G or a GH? And is the main character’s name Sinbad or Simbad? The video sleeve has Sinbad and the Caliph of Baghdad; the on-screen title is Simbad and the Calif of Bagdad (which is also on the BBFC certificate); and the label on the tape calls it Simbad & Caliph of Bagdad. There are also Italian intermission cards in this print which carry the original title Simbad e il Califfo di Bagdad. ‘Simbad’ incidentally is not bad proof-reading or an attempt to avoid some feared copyright suit, it is a legitimate alternative spelling (as is Sindbad, of course).

Robert Malcolm (Three Fantastic Supermen in the Orient) is our hero, introduced at the end of a two-year sea voyage. He is suitably handsome and athletic and spends much of the film wearing nothing but a pair of grey swimming trunks. He has a neat beard and a bouffant hairdo and is dubbed by someone with a strong Italian accent.

But before we meet Sinbad, we witness the evil that is the Caliph of Baghdad. This insane despot likes to pick a beauty from his harem and have her dance for him - except that the Caliph is hiding behind a screen with a crossbow while the serene figure on the throne is actually a lookalike dummy. The young lady shimmies and shakes and then gets a bolt in the chest for her troubles, at which point she is picked up and carried away by the other dancers, who are evidently used to this sort of thing.

This is the only actual example of the Caliph’s cruelty which we witness although the implication is that there is much else. Two government ministers discuss (quietly) how bad the ruler has become, including the introduction of a new punishment called ‘the pole’: “a straight, round stick, pointed at one end, is inserted into the victim’s... well, you can see this drawing.” And we do!

I’ll call these ministers Abdul 1 and Abdul 2, as they will reappear later. Neither is actually called Abdul but there are no character names in the credits and I can’t make out any names clearly in the dialogue - and even if I could, I would be guessing at spellings. I can’t even tell if people are calling the main character Sinbad or Simbad. The more senior Abdul is played by Spartaco Conversy who, in some other films, was credited as Spean Convery, presumably because he bears (or at least, bore) a passing resemblance to a certain Scotsman. I wonder whether any Italian audiences ever actually fell for that one? Conversy was in loads of westerns including A Bullet for the General (with Klaus Kinski) and Umberto Lenzi’s One for All. He has an uncredited bit-part in Once Upon a Time in the West as a guy who gets shot through the foot.

Also in the palace is the evil Vizier, who controls the Caliph’s medication and has his eye on the throne. I think he’s played by Arturo Dominici (unless that’s Abdul 2). Dominici played Eurysteus in the original Steve Reeves Hercules (also directed by Pietro Francisci) and was also in Caltiki the Immortal Monster, Goliath and the Barbarians, Black Sunday, Castle of Blood, loads of other pepla and - good Lord! - a 1972 Italian remake of A for Andromeda! I’m assuming he is the Vizier because he generally played villains. (Even more interesting are his dubbing credits. He was the voice of: James Doohan in Star Trek II and III; Bernard Lee in The Man with the Golden Gun and Live and Let Die; Jose Ferrer in Dune; Billy Barty in Willow; and Bruce Forsyth in Bedknobs and Broomsticks!)

Checking images via Google, I think Abdul 2 is played by the brilliantly named Franco Fantasia, who also gets a credit as ‘fencing master’. He was assistant director on several notorious films such as Mountain of the Cannibal God and Eaten Alive and had acting or stunt roles in dozens of Italian swashbucklers and thrillers plus various horrors and even the odd sci-fi picture like Atomic Cyborg: Steel Warrior.

Anyway, when Sinbad returns to Baghdad he finds his adopted father (he was an orphan) has died and the house which he thought was home is being emptied of all possessions by the Caliph’s men. All that has been left for Sinbad is half of a parchment, with instructions to find the other half and “the large safe”. Out on the street and unsure where to go, he is befriended by a comic relief double act of two crooks who I will call Larry and Mo. Larry (Leo Valeriano) is small, shifty and wide-eyed in contrast to the taller, older, more lugubrious Mo (Gigi Bonos). They are cheerful but not terribly competent and yet they’re not nearly as irritating as comic relief characters often are, and in fact a few of their lines border on funny.

Gigi Bonos was in his sixties when he made this and had been in films since 1945. His credits include Castle of the Living Dead, Mario Bava’s The Girl Who Knew Too Much, 12+1 (a version of The 13 Chairs which stars Orson Welles and Tim Brooke-Taylor!), They Call Me Trinity (and stacks of other spaghetti westerns), Roman Polanski’s What?, Frankenstein 80, Three Supermen of the West, Mr Superinvisible, The Exorcist: Italian Style and an extraordinary-sounding sci-fi western called The Sheriff and the Satellite Kid. Leo Valeriano, in contrast, was making his screen debut but went on to make another 52 pictures and is now a big-name cabaret star in Italy.

They take Sinbad to an inn where they ply him with drugged wine and then sell him to a sea captain - who then has his men cosh Larry and Mo, taking back his money and acquiring three Shanghaied slaves instead of one. Sinbad comes to onboard the ship, where he is sent aloft as lookout while Larry and Mo work as scullery boy and cook. The rest of the crew are a gang of thuggish ruffians but Sinbad shows them he’s not to be trifled with.

A small boat approaches the ship and several comely maidens climb onboard, disappearing below deck. Director Pietro Francisci makes frequent use throughout the film of vertical movement as people scale ropes, step down into hatchways or plummet through trapdoors. The final maiden doesn’t have to climb a rope ladder like the others: she is lifted up serenely on a platform by a pulley. This is ‘Scheherazade, Crown Princess of Bahrain’ (Sonia Wilson), intended as a politically expedient bride for the Caliph, and she holds her nose as she passes the sweaty (but handsome) slave who is scrubbing the deck.

Of course Sinbad falls hopelessly in love with the princess so as soon as he has finished swabbing he heads down to the kitchen where he has Larry and Mo give him a bath in a cauldron of fresh water, before anointing himself with perfume from the galley spice rack. The girls are looked after by a camp eunuch (who, rather cruelly, wears a turban decorated with a small pair of scissors!); Sinbad drugs the eunuch’s food then steals his clothes in order to take the princess her meal. This eunuch is played by the noted American writer Eugene Walter, who had time to found the Paris Review, hang out with all sorts of famous people and generally become famous - there’s even a Eugene Walter festival, and yes, it is the same guy! - when he wasn’t making films like Juliet of the Spirits, Black Belly of the Tarantula, The House with Laughing Windows and The Pyjama Girl Case.

Discovered in the princess’ room, Sinbad is sentenced to death but she orders him spared so he is set adrift in a small boat, along with Larry and Mo. They wind up on a curious, barren island. One of the staples of the Sinbad legend is the curious, barren island which turns out to be the back of a giant sea monster. In this instance, although Sinbad spends some time examining the strange rock formations, the idea that this might be a monster is never raised and the three men successfully escape without them - or us - finding out. Perhaps the budget simply didn’t stretch to those sort of effects.

There are several wrecked ships on the island, including one with the skeletons of galley slaves still gruesomely chained to their oars. Another boat is Chinese in which they find not only explosive bombs but a hot air balloon, which they use to make their escape.

Back in Baghdad, the trio start to live like kings, using treasure which they purloined from the wrecked ships. Sinbad has his beard shaved but leave his moustache, prompting Abdul 1 and Abdul 2 (remember them?) to note that he is the Caliph’s double. At a slave auction, presided over by our old friend the eunuch, the Caliph is bidding; it seems that most people have no idea who he is because he rarely leaves the palace. Sinbad turns up wearing identical clothes but with a blue fez instead of the Caliph’s red one. A gang of revolutionaries try to attack the Caliph and in the confusion it’s Sinbad (knocked unconscious) who is taken back to the palace while Larry and Mo rescue the Caliph by accident. This is all part of the Abduls’ plan.

Things then start to get more complicated. Sinbad (posing as the Caliph), Larry, Mo and the Abduls gain entry to a treasure room containing a large safe, which proves to have not only vast amounts of treasure within but also the other half of Sinbad’s parchment. This reveals that he is the Caliph’s twin brother, spirited away after birth to avoid political complications. However, the team’s presence in the room is alerted to the Vizier who sends Sinbad, Larry and Mo plummeting through a hidden trapdoor into a water-filled well.

Although we don’t see their rescue, we are told of it later. The film nears its finish with the Caliph watching Scheherazade dance but he is interrupted by the intrusion of the Vizier who declares that he is assuming sovereignty - and takes a crossbow bolt to the chest for his trouble. (A curious character, the Vizier: clearly evil, yet he is trying to rid Baghdad of someone even more evil, which makes him almost good by comparison.)

However, the Caliph has been tricked. That fake Caliph on the throne is not a dummy but his long-lost twin brother and the two indulge in a sword fight which is very well edited and only spoiled slightly by the body double with his back to the camera having much shorter hair than Robert Malcolm. There are also two extremely well-done split-screen shots with Sinbad and the Caliph face-to-face, one of which actually has the sword in Sinbad’s hand pressed against the chest of his brother. My guess is that this was achieved by having the sword fixed in place, probably with a pole sticking out from the scenery behind it. At least, that’s how I would do it...

Having disposed of the evil Caliph, Sinbad then has to face a squad of soldiers outside, commanded by a general who was previously holding allegiance to the Vizier. He now announces that no-one from the Caliph’s dynasty should rule, but the day is saved by Larry and Mo in the hot air balloon, dropping Chinese bombs on the soldiers from above.

What a corking adventure. It’s all just over-the-top enough to work as a good Sinbad adventure should. Above all, it looks gorgeous, thanks to location work in Egypt and the use of Eastmancolor stock (called ‘Telecolor’ here). The film is ‘An Umberto Russo di Pagliara production for Buton Film SpA with the collaboration of the General Egyptian Cinematographic Organisation.’

Also in the cast are Paul Oxon (The Slasher is the Sex Maniac - a film which share quite a number of cast and crew with this one), Maria Luigia Biscardi, Mark Davis (the acting pseudonym of screenwriter Gianfranco Clerici: Don’t Torture a Duckling, L’Anticristo, Cannibal Holocaust, The New York Ripper, Monster Shark, Phantom of Death etc), Eva Maria Grubmuller, Carla Mancini (the third victim in The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, also in All the Colors of the Dark, What Have You Done to Solange?, Baba Yaga Devil Witch, Flesh for Frankenstein, Flavia the Heretic and more than 150 other movies) and Alessandro Perrella (Death Walks at Midnight, The French Sex Murders, Seven Dead in the Cat’s Eye, Dr Frankenstein’s Castle of Freaks).

This was the last feature directed by Pietro Francisci, seven years after his previous one, oddball sci-fi flick 2+5: Mission Hydra (aka Star Pilot). He is best known of course, for launching Steve Reeves’ career - and the whole peplum genre - with Hercules and Hercules Unchained although he had previously made some other historicals including The Queen of Sheba and Attila the Hun. He died in 1977. Cinematographer Gino Santini’s many spaghetti western credits include Django the Bastard and a film which looks like it should belong in the Mirror Universe - Inghilterra Nuda, an Italian mondo film about Britain! Other notable crew members include costume designer Maria Luisa Panaro (The Bloodsucker Leads the Dance), supervising editor Otello Colangeli (Operation Kid Brother, Mr Superinvisible, Castle of Blood, The Virgin of Nuremburg, lots of pepla and Antonio Margheriti’s 1960s sci-fi movies), assistant director Renzo Girolami (Frankenstein’s Castle of Freaks), sound technician Roberto Alberghini (Puma Man, Erotic Nights of the Living Dead, Castle Freak, Mind Ripper, Argento’s Phantom of the Opera) and hair stylist Silvi Vittoria (Short Night of the Glass Dolls, Death Laid an Egg).

Composer Alessandro Alessandroni’s cool list of credits includes A Fistful of Dollars, Once Upon a Time in the West, The Devil’s Nightmare, The Strangler of Vienna, Lady Frankenstein and, um, SS Extermination Camp. Rather cheekily, the use of a stock recording of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade means that Herbert Von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic also get a credit - which would probably surprise them if they knew.

Special effects, which don’t extend much beyond a model hot air balloon on a rather visible wire, are by Paolo Ricci whose career extends from Django the Bastard in the late 1960s through The Sexorcist, Mountain of the Cannibal God, Big Alligator River, Fulci’s The Black Cat, 2019: After the Fall of New York, The Atlantis Interceptors etc right through to 2003’s The Accidental Detective.

Currently unavailable in English, except on old VHS tapes like this one, Sinbad and the Caliph of Baghdad is good, clean fun. The production values are surprisingly good and mention must be made of the way that a slight rocking motion is imparted to every single scene onboard the ship, above or below decks. It would be nice to seem someone pick this one up for DVD release, maybe with contributions from some of the surviving participants. I have no doubt that it will happen eventually.

MJS rating: B+
Review originally posted 28th March 2006

Tah Tien

Director: some Thai guy
Writer: some other Thai guy
Producer: some guy from Thailand
Cast: Sombat Methanee, Supuk Likitkul, Thep Tienchai
Year of release: 1973
Country: Thailand
Reviewed from: Thai VCD

Several reviews of Mars Men mention that the character of Yak Wat Jang, the giant Thai demon/superhero character in that Thai/Japanese co-production, also appeared in an earlier movie. Well now - here it is.

And let me tell you, folks: it’s bonkers.

In a prologue, we see a ragged-looking chap carrying a gold statue of Buddha which he has presumably stolen. Chortling with glee, he sits down at the foot of a large, gaily painted statue of Yak Wat Jang. Bad mistake. The statue lifts its staff and pounds the thief into the ground - literally. Hooray for Yak Wat Jang!

This is the last we will see of Yak Wat Jang for more than an hour.

So here’s what happens in the rest of the movie. A comet hurtles out of the sky and crashes into the sea (or at least, we see a still illustration of a comet followed by a small explosion in the water). From this comes a giant snake which crawls up onto the land and coughs up an egg. The egg is then eaten by a giant frog, which subsequently spits it out and expires. The egg promptly explodes to reveal a beautiful young woman, who somehow magically melds with the dead giant frog, who then gets up and walks away.

The snake (which we’ll see again) is basically a life-size prop. The frog is a man in a costume. It’s utterly, utterly extraordinary.

An old guy with a comedy moustache (let’s call him Roy) is riding his water buffalo along, minding his own business, when he is startled by a giant frog, which talks to him in the voice of a young woman. He takes her home to his shack, which has a tiger skin on the wall, and they share a comedy scene with a two-foot-long cigarette. Now tell me this folks: what other movie offers you a scene where an old man and a giant frog share an enormous roll-up?

Cut to an underwater kingdom where a woman with a head-dress like a cobra is discussing something with a young man who is probably her consort. I don’t know who this woman is, but we never see her again, which is a shame because it raised my hopes that this might be yet another snake-woman movie. Instead we see that old giant snake again, coming ashore and transforming into a young man (could be the one from the last scene but I really was by this point too engrossed in this weirdness to go back and check). He wears a snake-skin jerkin and red leggings and has a belt shaped like a snake. So this is a snake-man movie. Ooh, so close.

Back at Roy’s shack, we find that the frog can turn into the young woman but only does so when he’s not there. She magically creates a lot of food and drink, cushions and carpets, which impresses him, but he still thinks she’s a frog. The next day, she sees him off to work, but he sneaks back and peeks through the window, where he sees her in human form. Being a lecherous old comic relief character, he tiptoes in, grabs her from behind and steals a kiss - during which she of course transforms back into a frog.

Wait, what’s this? It’s some copyright-ignoring Sergio Leone music as another old guy rides up to Roy’s shack. He wears a stetson and a sheriff’s badge and a sarong. Clearly he’s a mate of Roy, unlike the young man dressed in black with a bandolier over his shoulder who follows him. I really didn’t understand this bit, which finishes with the young villainous guy chasing after the sheriff to give him his horse back. We never see either again, but we do get to see a giant frog chatting with a talking horse.

Okay, let’s leave Roy and Frog Girl for the moment and follow the adventures of Snake Boy as he comes across a small camp, occupied by a tall, good-looking hunter in a safari suit and his two assistants, who we’ll call Woolly Hat and Orange Vest. Snake Boy magically turns his belt into a (real) python which attacks Orange Vest, but Snake Boy then steps in and rescues him from the (drugged) snake. Snake Boy and Safari Suit swiftly become best friends.

Woolly Hat, being a lecherous young comic relief character, goes down to the river where he spies on two naked women. But who’s this coming up behind him? Why, it’s a man-in-a-crappy-suit gorilla. This movie just gets better and better. Back at the camp, the foursome pair off: Woolly Hat and Safari Suit forming one team, Orange Vest and Snake Boy the other. I assume they’re going to hunt for the gorilla but who can tell? The former pair are attacked by a rhinoceros, which consists of a combination of a dodgy puppet head and stock footage of a rhino clearly shot in a zoo.

Intermission. Change discs.

Snake Boy and Orange Vest find themselves in a rocky landscape where they see, well, a sort of dragon-dinosaur-monster. It’s about eight feel tall with a short tail, spikes up its back and a sort of beak - a stunning piece of ultra low budget suitmation. They kill it with a grenade but when Orange Vest checks the body the thing turns out to be still alive and promptly kills him. Snake Boy gives the beast a flying kung fu kick and knocks it over a cliff. Looking down, he sees that it has not only survived the fall but is now fighting a different dragon-dinosaur-monster! (This one has a longer tail and masses of big teeth.)

Wait a minute - the monsters are now fighting on top of a cliff, where they knock each other over the edge (cue shot of two monster suits being flung down a cliff). Snake Boy runs up and checks that they really are dead, despite the fact that he should technically be two cliffs above them.

Safari Suit, Woolly Hat and Snake Boy meet up back at camp where a sudden storm causes a flash flood which sweeps them and everything else away. Safari Suit is discovered the next day, unconscious, by... Roy, who is out spear-fishing. Roy takes him back to his shack where he meets and falls in love with Frog Girl (who is staying human for the moment).

We do briefly see what happened to one of the others - a bloody great crocodile (stock footage/puppet) chomps down on his limp body, causing vast amounts of blood to flow into the river. We can’t actually see if this is Woolly Hat or Snake Boy, and we never see either of them again.

Safari Suit and Frog Girl go to Bangkok where they visit various temples and speak with an ancient, white-haired hermit who magically disappears. Finally, 76 minutes into the film, Yak Wat Jang reappears. The young couple admire the 15-foot tall giant statue then discover the Buddha from the prologue hidden in some shrubbery. While Safari Suit is taking that somewhere, Frog Girl transforms into her amphibian persona and talks with Yak Wat Jang who magically turns into a human version of himself, retaining the extravagant costume and with a hat depicting the statue’s scary face.

Now appears the weird old man statue character who we previously saw in the cobbled-together-from-TV-episodes abomination Yak Wat Jang wu Jumbo A. Frog Girl turns him into a human version of himself too. The two gods argue like little children and eventually start fighting. In the last few minutes of the film, we finally get to see what the inlay promised: two giant beings devastating downtown Bangkok.

Well, it’s the cheapest, least thrilling giant-vs-giant rumble ever. The only miniature on show is a bridge, next to which Yak Wat Jang trashes some toy boats. All other shots achieve the impression of gigantism by simply shooting the two costumes in Bangkok itself from a very low angle. A few shots are even done over-the-shoulder, looking down at the tiny people and cars below, by putting the costumes on a hotel balcony! Eventually, the old man statue is defeated and Yak Wat Jang turns back into a statue. Frog Girl and Snake Boy live happily ever after.

Even by my standards - and I do have standards, believe it or not - this is one of the weirdest films I have ever seen. It looks like it might be based on some ancient Thai legend about a frog princess and a snake prince or something. The scenes with the giant frog are really quite creepy, like one of those scary East German fairy tale movies. In terms of battling giant demons it’s a bit of a swizz since they’re only on screen for about five minutes. However, the two dinosaurs and the gorilla go some way towards making up for that.

The only information on this film I can find anywhere is the list of three actors on the eThaicd website. Other than that I know nothing. Oh, but what a joy to watch such weirdness. It’s cheap and tatty but it is also clearly intended, at least in part, as a comedy. Whatever, it is a unique film.

MJS rating: C+

Update: In 2008, several years after this vague review was first posted, I received a very helpful e-mail from Eric Hurd, to whom I am indebted, not least for his kind comments about this site:

“Long time listener, first time caller” as they say here on the radio in the US. I’m a big fan of your website and love reading your reviews.

"I’ve especially enjoyed reading all the stuff you’ve written on the 'Yak Wat Jang' character’s appearance in films, most notably since it is the only major mention of these babies in English! I enjoy seeking out information on unknown giant monster films, particularly foreign ones (I hope to write a book on them someday) and finding anything at all not in foreign typefaces helps my searches greatly.

"Well, in my findings, I’ve come across some added info and links you may wish to take note of for your wonderful articles, especially in light of Chaiyo and company finally getting dusted in their whole Ultraman lawsuit fiasco. Firstly, you probably know good ol’ Yak is a character taken from real life, specifically from the statues in front of the temples in Wat Chaeng and Wat Pho (see these pictures). I’ve found that there is some sort of classic mythology there, which is the basis for the Tah Tien movie. The grey stone fellow is apparently, another temple guardian, which seems to go by the name 'Yak Wat Pho', pretty much due to his location. This was confirmed by a couple references to the same statue by that name online.

"In the picture link I mentioned above, Wat Pho’s picture is a couple shots down on the page. Note also the two Wat Jang guardians in the first two pictures on the page. Both ‘guard’ the same building on either side. One is the ‘movie’ green color while the other is white and seemingly painted in the colors of Chaiyo’s Hanuman! You wonder if that's where they came up with them? Note also the many varieties of stone guardian statues on the page, particularly the armless female. There was definitely wasted giant creature material there, I tell you.

"Meanwhile, another page has surfaced, showing some information on Tah Tien in English. It appears to be from a 2006 screening and gives a little more detail, chiefly that the two giants were fighting over money! You may also take notice of the biased information on Chaiyo creating Ultraman- Bwa ha ha ha!!!!!

"And finally, there may be even one more appearance by the big green guy, this time teamed with Chaiyo’s other franchise player, Hanuman! (I was always surprised this wasn’t an obvious pairing from the get-go.) Made in 1984, some 10 years after the last Yak appearance at the time (Tah Tien being made in 1973 and the first Jumborg Ace and Giant pairing coming in ’74- dates found by cutting and pasting the original language into online film databases), it’s called The Noble War aka Suk Kumpakan and is supposedly based on the Ramayana. It, like the others, is available at ethaicd.com."

Po Sledam Bremenskih Muzykantov

Writer: Vasili Livanov
Cast: Oleg Anofriyev, Muslim Magomayev, Anatoli Gorokhov
Country: USSR
Year of release: 1973
Reviewed from: Russian VHS

This direct sequel to the 1969 classic Bremenskie Muzikanty demonstrates a clear progression, not only in the quality of the animation and design but also in the infiltration of western culture into the Soviet Union (as was).

In this story, the King decides that he wants his daughter back from that vagabond Troubadour who is carrying her around the countryside with his four animal friends, and to this end he employs the services of a weaselly private detective. Clad in a garish check suit and driving a rather eccentric old car, this character reminded me of the Sherlock Holmes lampoon Coke Ennyday in The Mystery of the Leaping Fish - but surely that must be coincidence.

In a fairly simplistic storyline, the detective manages to snatch the King's daughter and takes her back to the city, chased by the animals and the Troubadour in a scene which could almost come out of Wacky Races. Back at the city, the Troubadour rescues the girl while the animals distract everyone with a swinging pop concert in the town square. That's about it, the whole thing enlivened with a bit more knockabout comedy than in the first film - the bandits make a brief reappearance - and of course all set to a bunch of folk/pop songs by Genadi Gladkov and Yuri Entin.

What is most interesting here is that in the intervening four years (some sources wrongly list this sequel as 1971) the influence of western pop and pop culture has clearly increased. The musicians in the first film looked like a Russian folk band accompanied by a ballad-singer in bell-bottoms. Here they have been transformed, not too much, but enough to make them recognisably a pop band. I don't know whether Yellow Submarine was ever shown in the Soviet Union - maybe somebody just saw some stills from that film - but the scene of the four animals performing in the town square shows a definite influence in my view.

I haven't been able to find out the name of the director, only that it was not Inessa Kovalevskaya who directed Bremenskie Muzikanty. The film runs about 20 minutes, the title means (and is sometimes cited as) On the Trail of the Musicians of Bremen and it is available on the same tape/DVD/VCD as the first film.

MJS rating: B+

The Loreley's Grasp

Director: Amando De Ossorio
Writer: Amando De Ossorio
Producer: Jose A Perez Giner
Cast: Tony Kendal, Helga Line, Silvia Tortosa
Year of release: 1973
Country: Spain
Reviewed from: UK VHS (VPD)

In these days of DVD ubiquity, there are few VHS tapes that will make me stop and look, but when I saw this for a couple of quid on a market stall, I knew that I had to have it. Amando De Ossorio of course was the mad Spaniard behind the infamous ‘Blind Dead’ films about zombie Knights Templar, but he made a few other horrors too, including Malenka/Fangs of the Living Dead, Night of the Sorcerers, Hydra: Monster of the Deep - and this obscurity.

In a small German town on the banks of the Rhine, a young woman prepares for her wedding day tomorrow, when suddenly the window smashes open and into the room comes a snarly, scaly monster, all claws and teeth. We don’t get a good look at it - in fact though it reappears several times, De Ossorio very sensibly keeps the complete beast from sight, hiding it in shadows. Mostly we see only a scaly, green, five-fingered claw, and sometimes we only see the shadow of that.

The townsfolk wonder if it was a bear that killed the woman (German bears must be very agile because it got in through a first floor window!) but a young, blind street violinist who has lived there all his life (though he is later identified as Hungarian) says that the killer was Loreley, much to the amusement of everyone else. Actually he says, “According to the tradition of the seven full moons, Loreley will be transformed into an obscene beast...” - so you can see why they all laugh.

Loreley, we gradually learn, was an ancient German siren who lured sailors to their doom. It’s a legend which is all tied up with the whole ‘ring of the Nibelung’ saga, familiar to fans of Richard Wagner. In these enlightened times, of course, no-one believes a word of it. (Interestingly, the monster is referred to as ‘Loreley’ throughout, never ‘the Loreley.’) Actually I say ‘these enlightened times’ but this is one of those movies where, despite mostly modern costumes and settings, some people still dress like they’ve stepped out of the mid-19th century, just to emphasise that this is backwards mittel-Europe.

Near the town is a girls’ boarding school; we never see any hint of educational activity though we do frequently see the girls in bikinis frolicking in the school pool. There are only about eight or nine of them and they are all in their early 20s, as is their stick-up-her-arse professor Elke (Silvia Tortosa: Horror Express), though the school principal (Josefina Jartin) is a bit older and more relaxed. The town mayor assigns an experienced hunter, Sirgurd, to guard the school from the wild beast and the ‘girls’ are delighted when he turns out to not be a crotchety old git but is actually hunky Tony Kendal (Three Fantastic Supermen, Return of the Blind Dead) in white flares and sunglasses, astride a motorbike.

The killings continue in the town. Another young woman and then the blind violinist. There are several references to the bodies having their hearts ripped out but none of the ones we see have anything more than clawmarks across the face and chest. And who is the mysterious, pale-faced young woman (Helga Line, whose truly amazing career includes Exorcism’s Daughter, Saga of the Draculas, Horror Express, Horror Rises from the Tomb, The Vampire’s Night Orgy plus pepla, westerns, Bond rip-offs and even a Santo film) who watches each funeral from her horse-drawn carriage (driven by a beardy guy in a sort of monk’s cowl)?

Sirgurd goes investigating and comes across cravat-wearing Professor Van Lander (Angel Melendez: Frankenstein’s Bloody Terror, Hunchback of the Morgue, Ceremonia Sangrienta), the only person (apart from the late violinist) who believes that Loreley is more than a legend. He takes Sirgurd to his laboratory, saying, “Here I have carried out experiments which science would consider fantastic and of course against all the principles of biology as it is understood today.” The Prof’s theory is that Loreley transforms from a beautiful young woman to a hideous scaly monster because she is regressing through thousands of years of evolution. Who would have thought it: The Loreley’s Grasp is, at heart, a remake of The She-Creature!

Van Lander has a detached human hand which he has acquired from the local hospital, and demonstrates how it becomes green and scaly when bathed in a ray of artificial moonlight (this is where the film gets seriously bonkers). His solution to the problem is, naturlich, the Sword of Siegfried! There is no explanation of where he obtained this, or indeed whether it’s the real thing, which is doubtful as it is only about nine inches long. “It has radioactivity,” explains the loony scientist. “It can destroy the cellular mutation of Loreley and send her back into the legendary night from which she has come.”

But who is Loreley? The mystery is about as unmysterious as The Gorgon, the Hammer film which famously pondered who the snake-headed woman could be, even though there was only one female member in the cast. Sirgurd eventually corners the pale-faced woman from the coach in a derelict house beside the river and she does everything except show him her birth certificate. She says she has been around for a long, long time - and indeed that her name is Loreley, which has to be a pretty big clue - and after she and Sirgurd have made love the beardy bloke, Alberic (the great Luis Barboo from Dracula - Prisoner of Frankenstein, A Virgin Among the Living Dead, The Erotic Rites of Frankenstein, Satan's Blood, The Bare Breasted Countess, etc), appears and carries her off into the river, disappearing below the surface with barely a ripple.

To pass up a clue like that you have to be either the über-sceptic or phenomenally stupid.

Sirgurd however has his eye on the frosty-but-softening Elke who is coming round to believing in Loreley, telling him, “Many serious witnesses have spoken of creatures never classified by Linnaeus...” - this movie is just a treasure trove of such brilliantly clunky lines. Meanwhile, the Professor is visited by Alberic and Loreley - “Good evening, Professor. I am Alberic.” “Any relation to the Nibelung?” - who leave him for dead and destroy his notes.

The film climaxes with Sirgurd scuba-diving into the river where he finds Loreley’s cave, complete with a horde of treasure left her by her father Wotan, and three scantily clad babes who allow him to escape while they are cat-fighting over who gets to shag him first.

What an extraordinary film. It’s not bad actually if you like 1970s Euro-horror: the acting’s passable (though the dubbing is risible) and the direction, as much as can be seen from this overly dark print, is competent. The storyline is enjoyably daft and at least it’s original, rather than being yet another damn vampire/werewolf/mummy/horde of zombies. The monster is monstrous, the deaths are violent and bloody, and the pseudo-scientific explanation is complete hogwash of the highest order. Top stuff.

As well as those mentioned above, the frankly all-star cast includes Lolita Tovar (Curse of the Vampire), Joseph Thelman (Tombs of the Blind Dead), Luis Induni (The Werewolf and the Yeti, Dr Jekyll Vs the Werewolf, The Horrible Sexy Vampire), Sergio Mendizabal (For a Few Dollars More), Mary Sol Delgado (Return of the Blind Dead), Javier de Rivera (Night of the Seagulls, A Dragonfly for Each Corpse, The Awful Dr Orloff), Antonio Orengo (Frankenstein’s Bloody Terror, Tombs of the Blind Dead, Scarab) and Betsabe Ruiz (Werewolf Shadow, Horror Rises from the Tomb, Autopsy).

Make-up artist Lolita Merlo seems to have plenty of credits though no others in the horror/fantasy genre (although her assistant Jose Morales worked on Werewolf Shadow), while special effects man Alfredo Segoviano did duty on The Werewolf and the Yeti and Exorcismo. Cinematographer Miguel F Mila worked on five De Ossorio films including Return of the Blind Dead (which shares so many cast and crew with this that it may even have been shot back to back) as well as A Dragonfly for Each Corpse and Blade of the Ripper.

One curious aspect of this film is that what few references I have found to it in my archives and on-line almost all spell the title The Lorelei’s Grasp, presumably because they are just translating the Spanish title Las Garras de Lorelei, but the on-screen title of this print is clearly spelt with a Y. This heavily cropped full-frame version, which loses a good part of both the image and the credits, is evidently an original British print as it carries a BBFC certificate at the start (with the odd title Loreley Grasp). The sleeve of the undated ex-rental video (mid/late-1980s at a guess) titles the film The Loreley’s Grasp but manages to misspell the monster’s name (twice) in the rear blurb as ‘the Lorelie’.

In America such complications were avoided because this was released as When the Screaming Stops. Apparently the US distributor added a William Castle-esque flashing red light before each attack.

At the moment this film seems to be commercially unavailable on either VHS or DVD, so if you see it on a market stall for a couple of quid/bucks, grab it quickly!

MJS rating: B

review originally posted 16th January 2005