Lea Giunchi Films (1911-1913) // Cinema’s First Nasty Women Review Part 2

Someone call the Trashmen

After Léontine is Léa. Léa is the second series documented in Cinema’s First Nasty Women. It appears that she had more than three films, though that’s all we get here. What is included is a real grab bag of shorts that don’t feel like they’re from the same thing. The first is a little on the realism side, the second an ensemble you could imagine is about a series of buffoonish couples, and the third surreal. It’s hard to believe these were intended for the same series, especially with the second not featuring Léa prominently. Then again, Léontine had almost this amount of variety. There still were more noticeable constants due to having most of her films, fifteen. These Léa films are incredibly varied in terms of quality, sometimes there’s good ideas and sometimes really poor ones.

Léa sui pattini aka Léa on Rollerskates (1911) is essentially Léa falling over on roller skates. Too little is done with the idea, though the ending is good. Léa lacks a personality, being a vessel that silly things happen to. If she had an identity, that could liven up this basic time-killer. Léa’s house looks like Léontine’s. Maybe they’re the same one? Overall, this is pretty much just one basic joke, which isn’t too painful due to how short it is. Léa’s falling isn’t great, but it suggests a desire to be a clown force in her own right.

Nothing really happens in Riposo festivo aka A Lively Day Off (1912). It goes through the motions of the story that lead to the end, with little forward drive. The ending is also far too predictable. A more significant problem is that the only characters that get much comedic material are two men. The women aren’t, other than when they briefly pester the men just as basically as women would in your average silent comedy. The character of Léa is often off to the background, doing nothing as desperately basic antics consume the screen. The story or humor aren’t exactly stellar, even on their own merits.

Lastly, there’s Léa bambola aka Léa as a Doll (1913). Finally we get a woman showing some identity and comedic ability. Léa is very fun here, committed to pretending to be a doll for ridiculous reasons. There’s some lovely absurdities here and Léa has a chance to show off her funny falling and her being lit up at the end of the short, acting like an explosive actual human being. The core idea and some elements are also good, like having a doll sign an important legal document, and everyone accepting a doll even could do such a thing. A criticism is that there could’ve been more done with this premise than was, though what we get is pretty solid, especially with the ending of Léa just loving life.

SPOILERS for Léa on Rollerskates

People chasing after our lead, but they go slowly because they’re in skates is pretty amusing. Léa being attached to a car at the end by the angry bystanders is a great way to end this one-joke half-reeler. A group of “straight man” characters running after the leading lady is very Léontine. It’s an interesting twist for them to actually catch her, and for what they do to be a charming bit of wackiness. This short suggests a character who ends up being a failure in situations. She literally is sent away when she wasn’t even intentionally knocking people over. Hopefully more shorts explored this element, taking it further. The Doll episode would be even more satisfying as she’d be fighting back against imposing forces.

OVERVIEW

The formula of these half-reel comedies was getting stale with Léontine. Léa continues a lot of those tropes, generally falling below Léontine. Just like her, Léa does have some good moments, with Léa as a Doll being the best short so far. The little bits of characterization in the first short and a bit more, tandem with better gags, in the third suggests there might be some quality Léa out there somewhere, wherein perhaps it’s a great shame we pretty much only have fragments here.

Blood and Roses (1960) Review

A frame of Marcella from the film

We get a very slow, eye-catching, surreal film in Blood and Roses. Many may watch it and think it’s eventless and boring, but that just adds to the strange nature of the film. You’re on the edge of your seat waiting for what will happen next. The vibrant colors and cinematography by Claude Renoir give an appealing and easy to engage movie. The colors reflect the colorful and strange situation. The protagonist is Marcella, played by Annette Vadim, a beautiful woman that’s a step out of line with everyone. She is very quiet and contemplative throughout the film. Her actress, Annette Stroyberg, goes through subtle changes which can be hard to detect between any two scenes, but they’re still there. Once finishing the film, if one goes back to the beginning, the character is different.

Other actors in the film are good. Even the two child actors effectively give their lines and portray their characters well as imaginative children. The male lead of the film is Mel Ferrer as Leopoldo De Karnstein. He’s a friend of Marcella and he’s going to marry her friend, Georgia. He’s an odd character. He sometimes is very kind, but other times is agitated. Near the beginning, he asks Marcella to go to a party he’s throwing and when she says she doesn’t want to, he gets mad and tells her to go with an angry voice. There’s an implication that he might do something bad if she doesn’t go. No character or plot point brings up his negatives. People that mention him mention his kindness. What’s the point to these moments? Elsa Martinelli is Georgia. She is mainly just the object of desire for characters as she’s very innocent and beautiful. This admittedly simplistic character is still portrayed quite well by Martinelli.

The pacing is very slow. Admittedly, not a lot happens, but there is a method to it. The slow pacing is building this weird, dreamlike film. It is portraying the slow madness of the whole thing. Slow scenes show how characters are thinking and what they’re doing, which pays off around the end when the climax hits. The point of the film is to see how our characters act and why.

SPOILERS

In the beginning, some characters are discussing vampires, Marcella is present. We get some foreshadowing when a character assumes that a vampire would be male. It’s relayed that about two-hundred years ago, all the vampires were killed by the people they were stalking. One may have escaped. A little bit later, guess what Marcella finds in a secret room of a castle? The vampire is female and Marcella looks like her. Some have said that Marcella is killed here and replaced by the vampire, Carmilla, but that wasn’t made very clear. Marcella acts increasingly agitated in the film. If Carmilla immediately replaced her, you’d think she’d act completely differently as we’re now dealing with a different person, but the slow transition makes one think Marcella is slowly being turned.

Vadim does a great job of showing her turns. Marcella’s progressively losing herself. She’s drawn to this beautiful white dress Carmilla wore and walks around in it. As if the dress represents her loss of control and humanity. Blood and Roses has some Lesbian subtext, just like in Dracula’s Daughter. While Carmilla was said to be with a man, perhaps Marcella overpowers this a bit or Carmilla didn’t like the man. There’s a scene of her chasing a girl, brilliantly executed with no cuts and no music, perhaps to suggest she’s looking for women, even though she’s not supposed to. However, one character, who has embellished stories of his to children, says that female vampires only go for female victims. While perhaps he was knowingly lying, why show that scene anyways? Why do female vampires go for women? Are they all Lesbians? What if this film is using female vampires as a metaphor for Lesbians? “Lesbians only go for female victims.” There could be an insinuation that Lesbians are vicious and predatory or they’re perceived that way.

At one point in the film, Marcella sees she’s bleeding when she looks in a mirror, but she’s not bleeding when she looks down at herself. She’s panicked by this. If vampires are a metaphor for Homosexuals, than the vampiristic blood would represent the gay desires she wants to suppress. She’s also bleeding from where her heart is, adding to this. Later on, Leopoldo kisses Marcella, while she doesn’t reject it, she doesn’t initiate it or show signs of being thrilled by it. Here, a man is appealing to her and her facial expression suggests, “Whatever.” Leopoldo is also cheating on his fiancée here, suggesting this is something you’re not supposed to like as it’s betrayal. This scene repeats itself when Georgia is disturbed by how strangely Marcella is acting. Ultimately, Marcella goes in and kisses Georgia. The vampire is going for the woman too innocent and kind, who is the object of desire, the prize. Georgia is “betraying” Leopoldo by not stopping this as soon as it happens, but this is also another representation of needing to let yourself free. Leopoldo does it to Marcella who does it to Georgia. I don’t care if this is wrong, I just got to! The two are interrupted before we see what Marcella would do next, but I’m driven crazy thinking about what Marcella’s objective was? Would she bite Georgia? Would she try to have sex with her? What?!

Georgia dreams later, among other things, the dream features Georgia and Marcella dancing. This may represent Georgia’s desires for Marcella as well. The scene of them dancing is beautiful. The dream sequence is especially striking as when it starts, the color film turns to black and white, but we see the color red, signifying blood and the heart. Georgia wakes up convinced Marcella will die. Not long afterwards, she falls on a stake wearing the dress and accidentally impales her heart. This film leaves you wondering how much of it is a dream or imagined, with some saying it all is. Some say that Marcella simply thinks she’s a vampire, but is not in actuality. Some say it’s all straightforward. Any possibility seems possible and like it could work in the story. If it’s a dream, it’s probably the dream of Georgia or Marcella, which makes the film even gayer as they’re dreaming about being together. If it’s straightforward, we’re still seeing this tortured soul who doesn’t know what to do. How does she act with Georgia or Leopoldo?

If it’s a delusion of Marcella, it leads to quandering. “What’s the fuel for it all?” In the beginning, Marcella looks in the direction of Leopoldo and Georgia and seems infatuated. There’s a bit of ambiguity as to who she’s looking at. Characters often say in the film that Marcella is in love with Leopoldo, but if the film is Marcella’s embellishing mind, then the story is her scream that this is not the case, that it’s actually Georgia she loves. When Leopoldo kisses Marcella, if she loved him, she could’ve just kept kissing him and possibly do more. She never initiates something with him. It appears metaphoric that everyone perceives her as loving Leopoldo, when the truth is that she loves the person right by him. The vampire looking like Marcella could suggest that one’s feelings and instincts never die. They’ll hide away, but they’re always there and they might come out at times.

OVERVIEW

Blood and Roses is a classy affair. It paints in blurry lines and gives you a lot to think about while still delivering an engaging and easy to follow story with drama, suspense, and little music, but the music present is a very pretty Harp score.

The Christmas That Almost Wasn’t (1966) Review

Paul Tripp, the writer and primary actor of the film. Photograph taken in 1961.

I needed a little break from searching for Christmas films. The last two have had a minimal relation to Christmas. December has started, we got to get at least one real Christmas movie going! This movie is super Christmassy. It’s set in December, there’s Santa, elves, his house at the North Pole, however, his wife isn’t there. Maybe she wanted a man who wasn’t paying rent. That’s right, in this film Christmas is threatened as Santa can’t pay his bills. His Credit Score must be terrible. I remember those old, fond memories in May 2017 of watching this movie as part of Mystery Science Theater 3000, a show which hosts generally poor films. It was terrible, but lovely for so many reasons. I had to see it again to know if it was a true masterpiece of stupidity.

The English dubbed version, which is easier to find, is not as bad as one might think. The physical portrayals that the actors give matches up well with how the English voice actors are speaking. The dubbing often doesn’t match the lip movement of the actors. This isn’t too big a deal as it’s easy to not pay attention to that. The acting generally works for what the film’s intention is. The main character, Sam Whipple, is written and performed like everything is lovely and joyful. Is that realistic to a person? No, but that’s what the film is going for. Whenever something unfortunate happens, we see that the character’s actor can give a performance other than pure bliss. Santa Claus’ actors are the best in the film. While it’s not masterful, we do see a real range. It’s weird to see Santa Claus looking depressed, but it’s a developed facial and vocal expression that makes sense. Later on, Santa is at a toy store with some kids and he seems genuinely happy.

The most interesting performance is that of Rossano Brazzi, who plays Phineas T. Prune, the villain. His performance is over the top to an incredible degree. He’s Santa’s landlord who hates Christmas and children. He will do anything to stop Christmas from happening for no other reason than that he hates children that much. He even says that Santa can choose to not pay rent and live in his home for free if he stops doing Christmas. He even shouts about how villainous he is. There is no attempt to have an actual character (except at the end). It’s honestly a site to behold. His performance got me thinking… my thought while watching the film is that the absurdity adds to the production. Other movies like Blazing Saddles are so good because of how the absurdity works and fits in the concept, but does this film’s absurdity add or subtract? There’s nothing in the film that’s enhanced by the absurdities other than how it enhances the entertainment for the audience at home, laughing at how stupid it is. Blazing Saddles winks at the audience and its stupid elements are brilliant in how they add to the narrative. I seem to have had mistaken The Christmas That Almost Wasn’t as a good movie taking advantage of the bad instead of a bad movie that’s enjoyable.

In terms of a so bad it’s good movie, this succeeds by quite a bit. There’s often a lot of fun here and there in the film. One part that was lacking was the songs, which typically weren’t written or performed well, but they don’t subtract too much from the overall film. The villain’s desire an urge to stop Christmas goes to lengths much farther than most would, as if he has nothing better to do. The character’s arc is nonsensical, but hilarious. It serves as a terrible way to finish the story, but it is indeed very Christmassy. The reasons for the start and end of the conflict is supported by a thin piece of thread. In terms of a silly movie filled to the brim with Christmas and joy, this film has got you covered.

The movie’s theme song is also a banger.