"Psycho-Circus" (1966) d/ John Moxley

Though tonight's movie, a German/British thriller/whodunit from the man who brought you the excellent City of the Dead (1960), doesn't nearly contain the atmosphere of that earlier film, there are enough twists and turns, red herrings and double crosses here to keep the viewer engaged right up until the final reveal. What's more, you've got Christopher Lee as a hooded lion tamer, the ever-creepy Klaus Kinski lur-kink about in ze shadows, the delectable Margaret Lee, and the equally scrumptious Suzy Kendall. And if you smoke half as many cigarettes as I do, you'll revel in amazement at the number of actors with hardcore tobacco-stained fingers in this movie. I can't ever recall seeing anything like it. On to the story, after this next cigarette. Sorry, force of habit...


"...and then I make you unconscious in ze het.", hisses Manfred (Klaus Kinski).
After a daring and elaborate armored car robbery in broad daylight on London Bridge, no less,  nets a gaggle of thugs a quarter of a million pounds in stolen loot and a murder rap, a phone call from the anonymous boss sends a suitcase full of notes to a deserted farmhouse, but the bag man takes a circus throwing knife in the back for his attention to detail. Meanwhile, back at Scotland Yard, Inspector Elliot (Leo Genn) traces some of the stolen cash to Barberini's Circus, on winter hiatus nearby, and goes undercover as a press photographer to solve the case. A lanky wank of a lion tamer named Gregor (Christopher Lee) who was mauled in the facepiece by lions and wears a dramatic black hood to hide his hideous scars, conceals the suitcase away under the big cats' cage for safe keeping, but is he the criminal mastermind and calculated murderer we've been looking for?


Gina (Margaret Lee) shouldn't be snooping around by the lion cages in the dark.
...Or could it be carnal-minded cutie, Gina's knife-throwing beau, Mario, whose short fuse over her continued infidelity grows shorter all the time? Could it be Mr. Big (Skip Martin), the half-pint blackmailer with one dwarfish ear to every trailer door? Maybe it's Manfred (Kinski), who ducks in and out of the shadows long enough to zmoak a zigarette? Is it the owner, Barberini himself, spurred on to criminal misdeeds by a mountain of debt? Perhaps it's the ringmaster, Karl, who is driven to find his own father's killer, and harbors some unhealthy lust for both Gina and Natasha (Suzy Kendall), Gregor's sensual young protege. Suspects begin turning up dead, one by one, each by throwing knives with a distinct silver triangle, from a set once used by the greatest knife thrower the world had ever seen...so come one, come all, to the most dangerous show on Earth, where nobody is who they seem or even claim to be, and the bounds they'd push for greed's sake are limitless, as you'll gather for yourselves after the final reel.


"I'm the Bob Fosse of lion tamers!", exclaims Gregor (Christopher Lee).
Though Lee stays hooded for three-quarters of the movie, his stature, ridiculous bullwhip gestures, and booming voice are an unmistakable giveaway from his first moments on screen. He looks as though he had a blast making this one. Kinski, though perhaps underutilized here, is effective and memorable, as always. The only negative I drew from the experience was repetitive footage of dirty circus animals, obviously not having the same great time the cast and crew might have had, being led through metropolitan streets, crammed into cages, and forced to act for the cameras against their nature. Go ahead and call me an old softie. I dare you. Three wops on the rating scale, and a solid recommendation.


"I'd pay a significant amount of this money for a sturdy toehold right now..."

"La bestia uccide a sangue freddo"(1971) d/ Fernando Di Leo

More Kinski? If you're into gialli, and who isn't these days, how about this one: A dubbed, chain smoking Klaus Kinski as a doctor in an asylum fulla oft-nude seventies Euro-eye candy the likes of Margaret Lee, Rosalba Neri, and Monica Strebel, as directed by none other than the late Fernando Di Leo, the man responsible for such enjoyably sleazy genre-fodder as I ragazzi del massacro, aka/ Naked Violence(1969), and Avere Vent'anni, aka/ To Be Twenty(1978). Di Leo, a director seemingly unfamiliar with the concept of "high roads", spills plenty of painty-looking stage blood and fills his lens with explicit crotch shots of no less than three of his actresses, in weaving this sometimes sluggish, always visually lush whodunit that's far too vile to not be a dynamite viewing experience for any genre nut worth his or her weight in shadowy, exotic weapon-wielding, black-gloved maniacs.


"Zis fahkink zigaret isss goink to taste zo zo gute."
At an out-of-the-way psychiatric clinic that seemingly only caters to (and hires, in some cases) young  women, some more nymphomaniacal than others, Professor Osterman (John Karlsen) runs an odd boat, indeed, with an impressive open display of various medieval weapons in an easily-accessible lounge, for those moments when a cloaked villain in black gloves fancies repeatedly clobbering a writhing naked woman with an ornate battle axe. It happens. The patients, errr, guests are free to come and go as they please, but seem content to play croquet, drink cocktails, smoke cigarettes, cop sensual nude rubdowns and sponge baths from attending staff members, like the petite ginger Nurse Helen (Monica Strebel), or simply fuck the groundskeeper in the greenhouse, like the sex-mad Anne (Rosalba Neri). Near constant masturbation also seems to be one of the rehabilitative techniques encouraged by the staff, like Dr. Keller (Kinski) who chain smokes and rambles psychoanalytically, when he isn't administering his own, personal brand of treatment to Mrs. Hume (Lee) in private.


I think phonetic Kinski dialog may have replaced preserves jokes here at the big W.
Anne takes an unbelievably groovy shower, and tries to seduce her own brother... like old times (blech), while Nurse Helen sets race relations back a hundred years with an interracial chicken dance with a black patient that naturally progresses into lesbo sex, but play time's undoubtedly over when one of the other nurses gets her head scythed off. Oh yeah, there's a killer afoot. Strangulation, followed by some sensual dagger-play, dude-in-an-iron-maiden, then oversexed Anne gets a post-masturbatory axing, beckoning the shadowy killer to fuck her first(!). Mrs Hume professes her eternal love for Dr. Keller, while the killer is revealed as he's trying to slip a noose around her neck. With the authorities hot on his trail, he locks himself in a room full o' chicks and a flail in hand(!!), and goes Richard Speck on the cornered lot of them, before getting stopped dead in his murderous tracks by some dramatic slo-mo squibs and a final head shot. The end.


Spoke too soon. Heyyy, you smeared some jam in close proximity to yer clam...
While most directors merely flirt with or skirt around the baser instincts of mankind, Di Leo never seemed to have a problem displaying it in his films, cinematically rolling around in it on occasion like a contented sow, hoof-deep in filth. We love him for that, here at the Wop, really we do, regardless of whether the hardcore quim-diddling shots here were inserted post-production, or not. Bestia was only one of eleven credits in 1971 for Kinski, which included Antonio Margheriti's Nella stretta morsa del ragno aka/Web of the Spider, and Giuseppe Vari's Prega il morto e amazzo il vivo aka/ Shoot the Living and Pray for the Dead. We could probably cover a different Klaus Kinski movie every day here until the end of the year and end up with leftovers.My obvious favorites on board, Rosalba Neri worked with all the top genre directors of the day, from D'Amato to Franco, while the lovely Margaret Lee you'll probably remember from The Bloody Judge(1970), and the firey Monica Strebel would go on to play Death in Brunello Rondi's Racconti proibiti...di niente vestiti, the following year.On the scale, the Cold-Blooded Beast garners a warm reception, two wops. Check it out!


Love to ruin it for ya. I, Spoiler.