‹ LA DANSE: LE BALLET DE L’OPERA DE PARIS (2009) will make you want to go to the ballet. Yeah, it’s that good. — Assignment #2: Shameful Moviegoing Experiences ›
Like The Godfather but want something a little less epic? Look no further than QUELLI CHE CONTANO (1974)
Posted by Daniel Metz
Dir. Andelchi and Andrea Bianchi
Alamo Ritz, 2/10/10, 11:59pm
From what I can tell, there comes a saturation point in the exploitation film fan’s exploration of the market when he develops a love for Italian cheapo films like Quelli che contano, advertised in the U.S. as Cry of a Prostitute. There is a sleazy-but-very-cool quality about these European knock-off’s that is at once transcendent and sullying. After watching a film like Dirty Pictures, Violent Professionals, Torso, The Gates of Hell, or even Tarzana, the Wild Girl, you want to shower, but you stop after you undress to admire your naked body. Does that make sense?
Although I admire exploitation more than most people I know, I don’t think I’m quite at that stage yet. I still hate Dario Argento movies, and I always leave a Weird Wednesday or Terror Tuesday Italian film with a feeling of confusion and wonderment. This week’s offering is a psycho-sexual (who would’ve thought) gangster film a la The Godfather, made two years after that successful genre-revitalizer. That’s exploitation for you.
Yes, go back to the old country. I want you to make derivitave works.
Before the film begins, the title card read Joseph Brenner presents. That always rings my bell, because Brenner, and his company Joseph Brenner Associates (what a name!) was a distributor of the variety that I love; a sleaze merchant who imported and retitled European films for American art theatres and grindhouses.
I first heard of Brenner when I was working on an academic paper on the nudist camp movies of Doris Wishman: he distributed her film Nude on the Moon. He also distributed the classic 1932 film Freaks on its 1970s rerelease, where it jumped from exploitation circuit standard to college cult film. Since then, I have seen his name attached to many cheap films: The Flesh Merchant, The Lonely Sex, Shangri-La (the nudist camp movie starring Jerry Lewis-mocking Sammy Petrillo), Freudus Sexualis, Ginger, the aforementioned The Gates of Hell, and Suspiria. And those are just the classics. He distributed many, many more.
From Nude on the Moon. Those are the spacemen who discover the girls. The girls, well, they're nude (not pictured).
There’s a quote often attributed to him: “If all my movies were as good as my trailers, I’d be in great shape.”
Back to Cry of a Prostitute, though. The film stars Henry Silva, who is pretty much Buster Keaton meets Richard Widmark/Tommy Udo. What I mean is, he never emotes with his face, just with his anger and evil energy. In this movie, he actually anally rapes a woman by shoving her head into the sliced open carcass of a pig. I hope that about covers it.
The victim, enjoying a banana. Technically, she kinda rapes him, but it turns around at about the time when the pic carcass gets involved.
In case it doesn’t, here are some other examples of Silva’s work in this film. After double-crossing a couple of goombas (is that a slur if it actually refers to mafiosi? I mean no disrespect, capiche?) by shooting one and bashing the other into a rock, he runs them both over with a steam roller that happened to be on the beach where he was. Why? I don’t really know. I guess he wanted to save space.
The story is weak and I won’t go into the specifics. Suffice it say that it is a tale of quadruple crossing when an American Don returns to Sicily. The joy of this film is not in its themes but in its details. Take for instance a restaurant brawl. When a thug breaks a bottle to use as a shiv, is it a beer bottle? No, of course not, we’re in Italy. Italians break wine bottles.
There’s a lot more, including a seductively ridiculous milk shower and a husband whose sexual dysfunction is straight out of the pages of the Penthouse letters to the editor.
Oh, and I’m contractually obligated to talk about the VHS box cover:
What does this box make you think? To me, it makes the film seem like it is about a transsexual hooker who gets a gigantic machine gun and seeks revenge on the men who take advantage of her. The tagline reads: “She left prostitution…and found murder!” What? The “prostitute” in the film is actually a retired prostitute who is now married to a mobster, and, although she does get raped, hardly seeks revenge. She certainly doesn’t look anything like that undercover cop from the box. And do you see the neon motel sign? There isn’t a motel in this movie.
But, if you look real carefully at the top of the box, you’ll see in big letters: Joseph Brenner Presents. Aha! That’s exploitation for you. Make up a hook and sell, sell, sell.
