TONIGHT: STRICTLY MEMBERS-ONLY
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WAKE THE DEAD>>> •BLOOD AND ROSES (1961), •EXPERIMENTS IN THE REVIVAL
OF DEAD ORGANISMS (1940), •MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH (1970), •NIGHT ON
BALD MOUNTAIN (1934), •CAT'S CRADLE (1974), •SPOOKS (1930), •LE SPECTRE
ROUGE (1907), •BLOOD AND ROSES (1961). <<<WAKE THE DEAD.



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1st. Quartile

APRIL
AD 2003

Monday, 07th.

Registration: 7.30 - 8.00 pm
Screening: >>>>> 8.00 (*EIGHT*!!!!) pm <<<<<

TONIGHT: STRICTLY MEMBERS-ONLY
MEMBERSHIPS STILL AVAILABLE AT THE DOOR ON THE NIGHT
DETAILS BELOW



WAKE THE DEAD
featuring:

•BLOOD AND ROSES (1961),
On the day of a masque held to celebrate the betrothal of the latest
descendant, Count Leopoldo (Mel Ferrer) to her beautiful cousine,
Georgia De Monteverdi (Elsa Martinelli), jealous sexy Carmilla (Annette
Vadim), is sulkily seething nearby. It is evident that Carmilla is in
love with Leopoldo and resents Georgia.

At the masque, Georgia pursued by a man with the face of a bat. It
turns out to be Leopoldo in a mask. When he realizes Carmilla has not
come to the ball, he goes to her room, stops her drinking and insists
that she gets dressed and comes down. Carmilla comes down in a long
white robe, Millarca's dress, which she has taken from the family
museum. A little drunk, she wanders alone into a fireworks display. As
the display goes off, an unexploded WWII bomb is triggered and the old
abbey crumbles. Carmilla now finds herself by an old tomb which has
been uncovered by the explosion. The inscription reads: 'Here lies my
love, Millarca.' The legend is recounted that, in 1765, the local
peasants, invading the family vault, drove stakes though the hearts of
the corpses to destroy supposed vampires. Learning of this, Carmilla
becomes obsessed with finding out even more and is drawn to the tomb,
whereupon Millarca ( or the notion of her) possesses ( or replaces
Carmilla - it's never made quite clear which).

Later that night after the excitement has calmed down, Georgia finds
Carmilla stretched on her bed. Unable to awaken her she calls Leopoldo
who carries Carmilla to her room. Georgia lingers when she finds that
she cannot pull her hand free from Carmilla's grip. Carmilla awakens
and Georgia remarks that her hands are as cold as ice.

Next day the Police Marshall (Gianni Di Benedetto) explains to Leopoldo
and Ruggieri that a number of German mines from the war had been stored
in the area. It will be fenced off until they have all been exploded.
Meanwhile, Carmilla figures in several strange incidents.

While running with Georgia, she complains that she cannot stand the
sun. At the table, she refers to events of 200 years ago as if they
were current events. When they decide to dance, she chooses a minuet.
She leaves abruptly and locks herself up in her room, pacing the floor
until she finds Millarca's white robe, which she puts on. As she goes
out, she is seen by a servant who thinks he has seen a ghost. She calls
him but he flees. The identities of Carmilla and Millarca slowly become
interwoven by implication and both Georgia and the maid, Lisa
(Gabriella Farinon) go in fear of her.

Leopoldo and Georgia are at the piano, where he explains he is playing
an unfinished sonata composed by a Von Karnstein 200 years ago. After
they leave, we see Carmilla, still in Millarca's robe, playing the same
melody, Leopoldo enters and tells her she is playing the completion of
the sonata as it was to have been written. They discuss Leopoldo's and
Georgia's honeymoon and Leopoldo suggests that she accompany them. As
she is talking, she notices small red stains like blood on her dress.
It is red wax from the candles, but, thinking it to be blood, Carmilla
rushes from the room. At each mirror she passes, the red stain appears
larger.

In her room she tears off the dress and the stain seems to remain on
her body. She shatters a mirror and falls to the ground trembling.
Leopoldo who has heard the noise comes into her room, picks her up and
kisses her. It is only because Carmilla is in a complete state of
lethargy that he is able to recover his senses in time.
Carmilla/Millarca thereafter sets about quenching her insatiable thirst
for human blood, terrorizing the Von Karnstein estate and environs. The
lusty Carmilla first jumps the young maid, Lisa.

Lisa's body is now discovered in the grounds. A blue mark is noticeable
on the neck - it could be the mark of a vampire, or simply a bruise
from a tree as the girl fell 90 feet. The hymns at Lisa's funeral
torment Carmilla, who flees. She is followed by Georgia to the
greenhouse. There Georgia pricks her finger on a rose thorn. She puts
her finger to her lips and a drop of blood remains there. Carmilla
draws closer to the hypnotised girl and only the arrival of a servant
prevents Carmilla's mouth from closing on Georgia's lips. Despite the
engagement, the women have been making eyes at each other throughout
the film (in that Euro-soft-porn sort of way, - and director Roger
Vadim plays up every lesbionic inch of it).

That night, Carmilla quietly visits Georgia's room and we see the
frightful turmoil of the nightmare Georgia suffers, which concludes
with the girl on an operating table. As her mask is removed she sees
Carmilla who tells her that she is Millarca, having killed Carmilla on
the night of the ball.

At Georgia's screams, Leopoldo breaks into her room, but Carmilla, or
Millarca, has gone. Leopoldo searches for her and, catching sight of
her near the ammunition dump, tries to warn her, but too late. In the
explosion Carmilla's body falls across a wooden stake which literally
pierces her heart - the way in which the Von Karnstein vampires were
exterminated 200 years ago.

Later, Leopoldo and Georgia are married and relate the story on the
return flight from their honeymoon. As the plane touches down, the red
rose Georgia is wearing suddenly wilts.

Roger Vadim, Mr. ex-Jane Fonda and director of various softcore
features such as the Brigitte Bardot breakthrough, AND GOD CREATED
WOMAN (1957), and the great BARBARELLA (1968), lent his Pop Art collage
of busty women ( - ol’ Roge really knows how to pick the most
beautiful seductive babes for his movies, - ) and outrageous plot lines
to this elegant and stylish tongue-in-cheek horror flick layered with
generous doses of eerie eroticism. The vampire, of course, is a bit on
the Sapphic side and, in usual Roger Vadim fashion, the actress who
played her was also his wife. An unusually intense female voiceover
makes this tale of vampiric obsession a cut above the usual Vadim babe
parade.

This lush, provocative, somewhat BELLE EPOQUE-ish Franco-Italian-made
feature, based on Sheridan LeFanu's gothic story CARMILLA, and caught
somewhere between soft porn and Cocteau, with lots of adoring eye
contact, was originally shot in the widescreen Technirama format
amongst the ruins of Hadrian's celebrated villa at Tivoli ( - interiors
at Cinecitta), and is loaded with beautiful photography and lesbian
sensuality ( - as only Europeans know how to do it) , and is
accompanied by one of the most umptuous music scores you’ll ever hear,
provided by Jean Prodromidès. The pace is languid and there is little
gore, as one would expect from European art cinema, but enjoyable on
its own terms. Posters advertised an "Is she girl or ghoul?"
competition, for a prize of $5000, although curiously. It is an
understatement to comment that in its day it was quite controversial
for its explicit lesbianism; although American-released prints avoided
the issue by excising some 13 minutes of footage. It is widely regarded
as something of a classic, partly because of Claude Renoir's
accomplished cinematography. Film Quarterly called it "the most elegant
and intelligent vampire film in decades."

Vadim had a talent for giving old stories a modern twist and maximum
impact. After adapting Laclos's "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" to suit 20th
Century audiences, he has now done the same with Irish novelist
Sheridan Le Fanu's "Carmilla", set in the Roman countryside and written
in the 1880's.

BLOOD AND ROSES is a beautiful film, beautiful and fascinating, like
the vampiress herself. It is also uncharacteristically modern for a
vampire film from this period, though it has romantic gothic
sensibilities. Unlike many other vampire films whose claimed homosexual
subtexts are unfounded, the lesbian aspect here is intentional.

It would take British cinema - Hammer Films, that is - almost ten years
to come up with as daring a film. Hammer had already spurred a
substantial revival of Gothic horror with their twin successes THE
CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1957) and THE HORROR OF DRACULA (1958) and BLOOD
AND ROSES was clearly intended to ride that wave of success. Hammer
Films themselves later spun off a series of Carmilla films, beginning
with THE VAMPIRE LOVERS (1970), with which inevitable comparisons
arise. The one thing that the Hammer comparison makes one realize is
how much Terence Fisher, et al., tied Hammer’s vision of the Gothic to
a specific period and time - when BLOOD AND ROSES updates the Le Fanu
story in a modern setting, one has to consciously jolt oneselve to
realize the presence of planes, sports-cars and stereos is not
anachronistic.

Opposing the rich flamboyance of Hammer’s treatment, Vadim’s vampirism
treatment is a lot more soft-focus and softcore in intent. There is
more eroticism than horror to the film ( - British and American
censors cut out much of the softcore lesbianism anyway). In fact there
is very little vampirism going on altogether – Vadim insisted that it
was not a vampire film. There is a ludicrously-tame scene where Annette
Vadim pursues a servant girl which just fades out just as Vadim closes
in on her. The atmosphere Vadim creates is occasionally compulsive -
there are undeniably striking shots, like the surrealistic fevre dream
which turns black-and-white with bodies swimming upside down outside
French windows and an operation where the surgeon’s gloves are all
tinted blood red. The beautiful photography, classy music, elaborate
costumes and ornately layed-out gardens all make for a sumptuously
assembled film - but alas little more than that.

Using many of the elements from CARMILLA, Vadim stretched what was
permissible and included the lesbian relationship between Carmilla and
Georgia, although much had to be left to the imagination.

The scene where Georgia pricks her finger on a rose in the hothouse,
licking it and leaving a spot of blood on her lip, which Carmilla
kisses away, must rank as the most erotic scene in an early sixties
horror movie ever.

Martinelli’s Georgia is a character (aptly) bereft of any real depth.
Not to insult Martinelli’s obvious mastery of acting, but the part of
Georgia lacks any real challenge. Martinelli basically plays ‘The
Victim’. While she is an integral part of a few of the more meaningful
and homoerotic scenes, she is not the one giving meaning to them. She
is the obstruction; the complication. The most important justification
for Georgia’s personality (or lack thereof) is to endear the audience
to the much more psychologically interesting Millarca/Carmilla. Georgia
is, in no way whatsoever going to be "wearing the pants" in any
relationship (heterosexual or otherwise).

Ferrer, however, does an excellent job of playing Leopoldo; a carefree,
unsuspecting aristocrat, walking around the entire movie with a
"pleased" look on his face ( - unless that’s just his face). Leopoldo
is a character caught in the middle of a struggle over him; a struggle
that he is, for the most part, unaware of, until Millarca steals a kiss
from him while Georgia sleeps. Leopoldo is a happy halfway-point
between the two girls’ personalities. He loves the superficially-happy
Georgia, and yet cares for, and is amused by, the darker, moody
Carmilla. He is also completely oblivious to the change in Carmilla
from a moody, wistful girl to a temporary zombie ( - from a
‘personality’ standpoint). He sees nothing odd about Carmilla suddenly
and constantly wearing a two-hundred year-old (at least!) wedding dress
that was presumably used by a vampire. No sir, nothing strange about
that. Each to his own, I say! Well, I suppose that hindsight is 20-20,
but I love it that no one, except the superstitious peasants, ( -
caretakers I mean) had even the slightest suspicion.

Now, by far the best character and the focal point of the film is the
lovely Carmilla (later Millarca). More than just a pretty face, Vadim
is wonderful in her portrayal of the lovely but bored Carmilla and her
ensuing transformation/possession to Millarca, the lovely and scary
vampire.

At the beginning, Carmilla is a wistful, playful girl who seems tired
of her life as a "poor-little-rich-girl" and seems entranced with the
evil history of the family. A very interesting girl who becomes even
more interesting when possessed by Millarca.

Through Millarca, the main themes and moods of the film are presented.
This hypnotic mood is presented by combining Sixties culture, style,
and ideals, coupled with an old-world nobility, elegance, and mystique.
This thematic/mood is immediately presented in the first scene; simply
a clip of a new ( - for the ‘60s, that is) 747 airliner flying through
the clouds, while the ancient vampire, Millarca, sets the stage with
her disdainful narrative; a narrative disdainful of the modern world’s
ignorance of old ways and the world of the spirit.

While the 1960s were a time of rebellion against ( - some say - ) the
ultra-conformist 1950s, and of new fashions and attitudes, they were
definitely not a time where people appreciated ( beyond finding them
“groovy” ) the old mythologies and legends; this is what Millarca
scorns us for - for our ignorance of things not modern and
technological - things that should clearly be given attention, as shown
by the presence of a Vampire.

This scene sets the mood for the entire film. The styles and culture of
the ‘60s are presented mainly through the sparse 20th Century
technology shown in the film, and through the attitudes of the
characters. The aristocrats are light-hearted ‘60s folk who drive cars,
watch fireworks, and listen to jazzy Herb Alpert tunes on the radio
while they get drunk. Other than these brief displays, the rest of the
mood is 17 th century style and setting. Socially, they are aristocrats
still ruling over peasants; who live in an old castle with its own
catacombs.

The film takes place out in the country, so the villa completely
dominates the setting; Carmilla is always wearing the wedding dress of
a 17 th Century noblewoman; and suddenly her favorite music is old
ballroom-type music - yet, you still know it is supposed to be the
‘60s. This is what best contributes to the odd feelings of unease: the
fact that we know it is the ‘60s, but almost everything we see in the
film says otherwise. Added to this visual and cultural confusion is a
predominantly ‘old’ musical score, full of lyre, classical guitar, and
harp to further unsettle the mood ( - or put you right at home, if you
are an ancient vampire).

The film also has a couple of hallucinatory dreamlike sequences in
which the two girls, Georgia and Millarca, are featured. In each, the
mood takes a turn for the wacko by the use of sudden black and white,
slow motion, close-ups of a girl’s face, or the two girls together.
Especially groovy is the bright-scarlet blood amidst a scene of horror
or sensuousness in black and white. These two scenes can be described
as mood-explosions, or orgasms, where the mood and mystique are taken
to the extreme. With these scenes and other tools, Vadim has
brilliantly mixed two worlds, hundreds of years apart, that are like
light and dark juxtaposed to create an overall feeling of ambiguous
unease.

BLOOD AND ROSES has two main themes within its story and its
characters. Actually, they are more like "Things to Think About" than
straightforward themes. Regardless, the main one is the marriage of the
old world with the new and how vampires represent this idea. Yet the
vampire’s role in the new world and our ignorance of the old world are
topics important enough for Millarca to specifically point them out to
the audience. As a vampire, Millarca has to work to adapt to the world
(and the body) she now finds herself in. Her best solution to this is
to try and recreate her old world by reclaiming her former lover
through Leopoldo. The Vampire’s representation of this struggle to
adapt to, or blend with, the new world is a primary concept in vampire
stories and definitely in BLOOD AND ROSES. In Anne Rice’s VAMPIRE
CHRONICLES, this problem was central in the vampire’s life.

In addition to the overall mystical mood, the film is also has several
moments of implicit lesbianism. In the scene where Millarca is
confronting Georgia in the greenhouse, a dreamlike mis-en-scene
overtakes the shot as Millarca reaches for Georgia (who has cut her
lip) and seems to kiss the blood off. It is a very sexual scene,
between two women, in a movie where Leopoldo is supposed to be the main
love interest. It poses the question: Can a spurned woman get a second
chance at romance, in the body of another? In fact, in every scene
where Millarca is taking a victim, the mood is very sexual and somewhat
scary.

Interestingly, the obvious sexuality of the vampyre was first portrayed
on screen by a female vampyre. In retrospect, the scene in Dracula's
Daughter (1936) in which the female vampyre seduced the young model was
far more charged with sexuality than any played by Bela Lugosi.

Other filmic adaptations of Carmilla include:- TERROR IN THE CRYPT
(1963); Hammer’s LUST FOR A VAMPIRE (1971), and TWINS OF EVIL (1972);
THE BLOOD-SPATTERED BRIDE (1972) and CARMILLA (TV movie, 1987) .

- “One of those pictures I love unreservedly, but couldn't possibly
defend.” - Cameron Grace, www.sensesofcinema.com

Dir. Roger Vadim. Wr. Claude Brulé, Sheridan Le Fanu (novel:
"Carmilla"), Claude Martin, Roger Vadim, Roger Vailland. Original
title: ET MOURIR DE PLAISIR (And Die Of Pleasure). Also Known As:
SANGUE E LA ROSA (1961) (Italy) ,TO DIE WITH PLEASURE (1960)
(International: informal literal English title). Cast: Mel Ferrer,
Elsa Martinelli, Annette Vadim, René-Jean Chauffard, Marc Allégret,
Alberto Bonucci, Serge Marquand, Gabriella Farinon, Renato Speziali,
Edith Peters, Gianni De Benedetto, Carmilla Stroyberg, Nathalie
LeForet. Prod. Raymond Eger. Mus: Jean Prodromidès. Phot: Claude
Renoir. Ed:Victoria Mercanton. Prod. Des. Jean André. Cost. Des.
Marcel Escoffier. (France / Italy). 74 mins. RESURRECTION MEDIA.


with supporting shorts:

•EXPERIMENTS IN THE REVIVAL OF DEAD ORGANISMS (1940),
A Splodge! favourite returns! Godless Soviet (COMMIE) SADISTS purport
to bring flatlined pooches back to life using old Victa lawnmower parts
after having completely drained them of their blood & left them lying
around for 15 minutes! Does this film dismiss the notion of
"life-force", or does it simply demonstrate the basis of the
conventional heart-lung technology that we use today?? A masterpiece of
filmic deception... or is it?
Check the vibe on this one at the Prelinger Archive at:

http://makeashorterlink.com/?H5E921214

or, if you can't wait until Monday night, here's SPLODGE! for you at
home:

Storyboard:
http://www.archive.org/movies/thumbnails.php?id=394

Watch movie:
Broadband (256k) (Real Player)
http://makeashorterlink.com/?L29051704

Modem (64kb) (Real Player)
http://makeashorterlink.com/?J18021704

Download movie:
AVI (65M) (Winamp)
http://makeashorterlink.com/?T17035704

MPEG (517M) (Winamp)
http://makeashorterlink.com/?L26032704

MPG (195M) (Winamp)
http://makeashorterlink.com/?K55051704

Sponsor: Soviet Film Agency. Prod: Techfilm Studio, Moscow. Camera:
E.V. Kashina. Dir: D.I. Yashin. Wr., supervised: S.S. Bryukhonenko,
Doctor of Medical Science, of the Institute of Experimental Physiology
and Therapy, Voronezh, U.S.S.R. Introduced by Professor J.B.S.
Haldane. Narrator: Professor Walter B. Cannon. (Commentary: Professor
J.B.S. Haldane, FRS. ?) 22min. ALC.


•MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH (1970),
The mounting terror of Edgar Allen Poe's classic tale has been captured
in this beautiful hand painted animated short. Count Prospero has
locked himself and his decadent court inside his castle as a protection
against the plague which is devastating the countryside. The castle
ball is interrupted by a seductive woman who entices the count further
and further through the luxurious rooms of the castles. At the end, in
a passionate embrace, Prospero discovers that the mysterious guest is
in fact the plague. Dir. Pavao Štalter / Branko Ranitovic. Prod Co:
Zagreb Film. 11 mins. ALC.


•NIGHT ON BALD MOUNTAIN (1934),
A significant early animation from the silent/sound transition period,
this fantasy is based on Mussorgsky's tone (symphonic) poem, evoking a
world of demons, witches and goblins. The first film by the Parisian
lithographer, Alexander Alexeieff (made with the assistance of his
wife, Claire Parker) using his famous pinboard invention which allowed
production of a great range of tonal qualities. Dir. Alexandre
Alexeieff. Mus. Modest Petrovich Mussorgyski. 8 mins. ALC.


•CAT'S CRADLE (1974),
An animated fable without words starring some Gothic characters -
witches, cloaked riders and the like - in a tale about the hungry
natural world. Here the artist plays cat's cradle with ideas,
especially the notion that one thing leads to another and lives from
another; he supports the action with a witch's brew of sounds. Awards:
Los Angeles; Zagreb. Prod Co: National Film Board of Canada. Prod:
Gaston Sarault. Dir: Paul Driessen. 10 mins. NFVLS.


•SPOOKS (1930),
A Flip The Frog cartoon in which Flip finds himself caught in a storm.
He spots a house, but instead of receiving the shelter he had wished
for, he finds that the house contains skeletons who wish to make him a
skeleton too! Prod: Celebrity Productions. Prod. Dir. Anim: Ub Iwerks.
8 mins. NFVLS.


•LE SPECTRE ROUGE (aka EL ESPECTRO VERMELLO) (1907),
Trick film, made in France by Catalander, Segundo de Chomón ( -
although occasionally falsely attributed to Ferdinand Zecca), of fiery
conjuring tricks performed by a Faustian magician in a skeleton
costume. A dematerialization trick involving what appears to be the
Pathé rooster may explain the reference to a 'red spectre' in the
title. Hand-coloured. Info: http://makeashorterlink.com/?N2A0127F3 Prod
Co: Pathé Frères. Lobster Films. Dir: Segundo de Chomón. 7 mins. NFVLS.


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Minor programme changes may occur due to unforseen
circumstances.
Feature runs last; shorts order may vary from listing.

* Acknowledging ACMI Inc. ;) *

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