"Blueblood" (1973) d/ Andrew Sinclair

The first time I saw Ollie Reed, in Ken Russell's Tommy (1975), I didn't like him. Looking back, it was probably his greasy Teddy Boy haircut combined with his awful singing in the movie that put me off, but over time, I earned great respect for the man's approach to acting, partying, and life, in general. Tonight's review, a gothic tale of witchcraft and horror set in extravagant Longleat House, country seat of the Marquis of Bath (who co-wrote the often clever script),  is a great example of Reed, from frivolous to sinister in record time and back again, all the while affecting an accent that is as hilarious as it is unintelligible. Sharing the lens with Ollie are the likes of Emperor Cl-Cl-Claudius himself, Sir Derek Jacobi, the ever-scrumptious Fiona Lewis, and Anna Gael (who's also the wife of the aforementioned Marquis).


"Aristocrat or not, I've a lot of balls for wearing a coat like this."
Beate (Meg Wynn Owen) is a frumpy, traditional German nanny, the latest to be employed by foppishly decadent aristocrat, Gregory (Derek Jacobi), whose predatory wife, Lily (Fiona Lewis), is often elsewhere on singing gigs, and whose looming butler, Tom (Oliver Reed), is a subject of growing unease and mistrust for the new nanny. Her two young charges being the result of Gregory's efforts to provide a male heir to inherit the sprawling estate, with a private section cordoned off for the family, and a public one that includes a drive thru wildlife park(!) for the constant influx of gawking tourists, Beate soon finds her dreams have gone all witchy with a red tint, and Tom as centerpiece, decked out in red cloth, dramatically palming a sacrificial dagger, and so on.


"Lighten up, Ilsa. 'Ave a bang of this Moony Kush."
The nanny finds that her cautionary chat with her employer is for naught, as he's no more concerned with his children's welfare than he is with his own deviant perversions or growing dependence upon his equally deviant manservant, who has taken control of the estate and all within it through his late night, red-colored voodoo. While Gregory carelessly parties away upstairs with a gaggle of upper-class twits, Tom follows suit with the staff, drinking booze and blowing jibbers, doing pretty much whatever (and whoever) he bloody well pleases, even slapping a stifling headlock on his fey boss in front of his mistress (Anna Gael) with no repercussions to fear. It all ends badly for the spineless aristocrats, as the male heir eats a sacrificial shiv and Gregory is no less deceased himself, and all with Tom gloating over the spoils, with an obedient Lily by his side.


'Cor, Fioner. You're giving me a...great deal of pleasure while admiring this screen cap.
The film sat for two years before opening to few theaters and fewer positive reviews in 1975, but that's not a deserving epitaph for such a movie, I think. If you're a fan of Reed and Jacobi, both of whom are excellent here, or just enjoy well-crafted British horror, and you haven't caught this one yet, do so immediately. Novelist/Director Sinclair, who also wrote an episode of Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense, aptly blends elements of anxiety and comedy into an entertaining visual romp full of sex, blood, drugs, and magic; all the necessary ingredients to earn this particular witches brew an impressive score of three Wops on the rating scale. Recommended.


"I'll only take a ceremonial dagger-stirred Bloody Mary, y'know..."

"Tintorera"(1978)d/Rene Cardona, Jr.

First of all, to those of you woprophiles out there who have only managed to catch the truncated 85 minute American cut of tonight's entry thus far, that might feel like they've missed out on witnessing the missing forty or so minutes, I say this.The uncut Tintorera experience is pretty easily summed up, really. It's like a two hour long made-for-cable episode of Love Boat, if Captain Steubing was a Speedo-clad Hugo Stiglitz and Gopher was a hispanic shark fisherman with red hair (unconvincingly dyed Kool Aid red, methinks), as written by Bob Guccione, with the Mexican equivalent of Umberto Lenzi behind the camera, screaming wildly for more real animal killings, bad disco dancing, and casual nudity.I apologize if I've made any of this seem appetizing to the refined Cult palates of Wopsploitation readers out there, because it really isn't in the least.If you're on board for a gripping, Jaws-inspired cinematic adrenaline rush, it sucks to be you.You're not even getting unintentional Jaws rip off laughs a la Castellari's Great White here.If you're looking for daring, exploitative seventies sex unapologetically depicted in front of the camera, you're shit out of luck, as well.What you will see, is yachtfuls of juvenile sharks getting their skulls pulverized with bats, when they aren't being fatally harpooned in the labonza, that is, by two male characters so immersed in constant macho competition that they've gone fluttery in the flippers for each other, despite having a seemingly neverending supply of willing beach babes with less sexual inhibitions than clothes, a fully stocked houseboat, and piles of cash at their disposal.Personally, I'd sink the houseboat in the shallows by overloading it with sexy ladies to party with and be done with it, but maybe I'm simply not the target audience here.As many exploitative elements as this film has going for it, the viewer shouldn't be daydreaming about their next nap, the way I was on more than one occasion during this mostly boring waste of fucking time.The convoluted story goes like this...

To Esteban(Hugo Stiglitz), vacation means hedonism.
After work, coffee, and chainsmoking lead to his eventual breakdown(as if that was possible!), a doctor prescribes three months in Cancun to a reluctant Esteban(Hugo Stiglitz) who borrows a yacht, and hires Coronado(Roberto Guzmán),a gangly redheaded shark fisherman as his personal assistant during his sun-baked rehabilitation on the beach.Esteban immediately hooks pillow-chested Patricia(Fiona Lewis), before losing her to professional Mexi-stud Miguel(Andres Garcia), who bottoms her out himself before she goes for that nude swim at sunrise,a wigged prop head full of guts in the mouth of a tiger shark signalling her premature exit in our tale.Miguel uses his charms on a jilted Esteban, who decides becoming best friends in hedonism with his competitor makes a lot more sense than searching for the woman he may have fallen in love with, now missing.The new pals hook up with two hitchiking honeys,Cynthia and Kelly, who laughingly recount how they consented to rape from two horny fruit picking Mexicans in the back of an orange truck just to get there.Now there's one their kids'll love hearing about years from now, and a perfect cue for an ensuing evening of drinking, dancing, casual sex, and partner-swapping on Esteban's boat.In a momentary pause from their womanizing after a hung up Esteban angrily busts up an impromptu disco marijuana party on the boat, the men enjoy some scuba diving* the next day(*bravely harpooning some undersized, sleeping sharks on the ocean floor).They encounter Gabriella(Susan George),a British tourist they're both instantly taken with(translation:making bets as to which will bed her first), who agrees to go fishing with the self-proclaimed "shark hunters" the next day.

Clearly, not much of Fiona Lewis' salary went towards costumes.
Impressed with how adept they are at whacking everything that swims(including a manta ray for some inexplicably worthless reason), Gabriella agrees to an uncomfortable love triangle where she wholly belongs to both men and they both wholly belong to her.If you think that's weird, wait 'til you see the establishing montage that follows.The unorthodox three way bond continues to evolve, with Gabriella and Miguel moving onto Esteban's boat full-time and sharing duties, clothes, and errrrvrythin'; until just when you're sure the men are about to dump the broad and kiss each other, that titular tiger shark you probably forgot about by now decides to graphically eat Miguel, swimming around with his disembodied head in his toothy yap as a pair of severed wetsuit legs float lifelessly to the bottom.After you've wiped the tears of uncontrollable laughter from your eyes, you'll notice that a grieving Gabriella bows out of the reduced love equation, herself.Back at the starting gate, Esteban respects his dead pal Miguel's wishes and parties like nothing ever happened, even reuniting with the loose hitchhiking tourist chicks from earlier in the movie.His brooding even finds him burying the hatchet with the unwanted party guests on his boat, and in a fine display of friendship, he invites them all to skinny dip their way to his boat at night.Yeah, that's probably not a great idea, Esteban.Tintorera again makes the scene, swimming in and out of the shallows full of terrified nude swimmers(I'm thinking they pulled a sizeable dead tiger shark on a tow to achieve this impressive sequence), making off with one of the girls' shapely pegs in the process.Esteban vows to the girl's father to kill the offending cartillagenous culprit, which he seemingly does after another underwater sequence where he jams his spear gun into the shark's yap, but not before the tiger relieves him of one of his arms(or not,I dunno at this point).We see Esteban bandaged in the hospital, reminiscing about his time with Miguel and Gabriella.If you think that's headache-inducing confusion, just wait until we cover Hugo's Incubo sulla Citta Contaminata in the future...

Severed Mexican gigolo heads: Antonio the Tiger(Shark) sez, "They're GRRRRRRRRREAT!"
There's nearly as much underwater footage of tiger sharks here, handled by Mexican marine biologist/author of the novel, Ramón Bravo, as there is of hairy male asses(arguably the Ben Hur of naked male ass movies, no doubt, if that's your thing.Not mine, by any stretch of the imadge, droogies.).Making matters worse is an embarrassingly rotten disco soundtrack supplied by the late Basil Poledouris, who would later score films like Conan the Barbarian and Starship Troopers.Perplexing to think a biologist like Bravo would be cool with the wanton, pointless death of so much marine life that transpires in front of Cardona's lens here.Not trying to sound like the hip new President of PETA here or anything(sharks are indeed quite delicious), I just think it was wholly unneccessary and made me a little uncomfortable, as it has to anybody else I've shown the movie to.In closing, Tintorera has all the potential elements needed to satisfy cult, horror, and exploitation fans, but somehow manages to lifelessly float upside down at the surface; a mostly boring and inept mess.Just one big one on the scale.

There's plenty of sex on display here, if by "sex" you mean bloody meat-filled wetsuits.

"Lisztomania"(1975)d/Ken Russell

Some directors paint a decidedly linear picture,tell a story the way you'd hear it from Grandpa,if he was sitting in a rocker,relating details in a manner that you could almost close your eyes and envision the tale unfolding as if you were right there experiencing it next to him.Some directors choose not to follow that route,choosing a far more fucked up path to take the viewer on.Ken Russell oftimes likes to do that.Sometimes he's very successful in purveying a twisted vision,but once in awhile,his finished product flops around like a brook trout gasping for air in a bucket on a rowboat.This entry,which was released the same year as his successful yet equally bananas "Tommy"(1975),is a perfect example,all but disappearing from the face of the earth since audiences and critics alike first walked out of theaters scratching their heads over the experience.

She loves you,and you know that can't be bad,says Pope Ringo I.
Russell paints an impressionistic picture of Franz Liszt,19th century composer,if he were a rock star of the day,tickling the ivories in front of throngs of screaming teenaged fans,and bedding amorous groupies at every juncture,with ham-fisted bedroom humour and bizarre visual flair.An interesting cast sinks in this production.He recruits Roger Daltrey,frontman of The Who,to play Liszt,Paul Nicholas as Richard Wagner,Beatle Ringo Starr as the Pope(!),and Yes's Rick Wakeman in the role of Thor(!!).Fiona Lewis and Little Nell of "Rocky Horror" fame are amongst the women in the composer's lovelife.Somewhere in here is a story,albeit an outrageously over-the-top one,and that's only if you can find it.

Richard Wagner(Paul Nicholas),the vampire,looking a little worse for wear.
After a swordfight with Count d'Agoult when he catches the composer in bed with his wife,Marie(Daltrey's head swings back and forth like a metronome between Lewis' pendulous breasts),Liszt finds himself trapped inside a piano with the woman,tied to the railroad tracks.He has a daughter with Lady d'Agoult,but decides to woo Princess Carolyn of St. Petersburg upon invitation instead,eloping with her,their marriage forbidden by the Pope,causing Liszt to embrace a monastic life as an abbe.Richard Wagner is the composer's friend and also a vampire(!) whose creativity is directly affected by Liszt's lifeblood,which he often sups upon.His jealousy over his friend's popularity and a friendly visit from Norse god Thor(!!) spurs him on to desperate measures,creating Franken-Hitler(!!!) to destroy the world with his electric guitar.Luckily for us,Liszt travels down from the heavens in a pipe-organ rocketship to thwart the dictator/rocker/patchwork creature's plans of global domination with laser blasts comprised of primary color schemes.I'll give you a minute here.

Liszt(Roger Daltrey),about to dance inside a mammoth pair of knickers.
A surreal cornucopia of bizzare imagery and largely horrible musical numbers,composed by Wakeman and sung by Daltrey,I'd imagine both performers have long since swept this collaboration under their creative rugs,hoping no one ever drudges the wretched thing up again.Even in 1975,if you slung a musical about famous composers together,with Frankenstein,Thor,Hitler,Superman,vampires,cigars,the papacy,Heaven,war,love,Charlie Chaplin,philosophy,sexuality...I'm pretty sure there's a kitchen sink in there somewhere too,you might lose some of your audience along the way.Yes,even the segment of moviegoers who dropped some double-dipped white blotter acid before hitting the theater,a good portion of which used to show up at my house in the early days of video with Led Zeppelin's "The Song Remains the Same" just to watch Jimmy Page's Hermit sequence and blow what little mind they had left at that point(it was more impressive at the midnight movies,mind you).

Liszt shows onstage affection for lovely lovely Ludwig Van.
In closing,you might wanna secure yourself a copy if any of this visual smorgasbord sounds interesting to you,but be warned;as musicals go,it's not "West Side Story",and this IS coming from a lifelong Who fan who has always enjoyed Rick Wakeman's film scores,Ken Russell movies,and naked broads.As much as I've always wanted to see a mash up of Frankenstein and Hitler marching through decimated cities with an electric guitar,I'm gonna go ahead and give this mish-mosh:

In my book,it's just not a musical until they drag out an enormous phallus and a kickline of concubines.