Holiday Music Fare

[Dave Monroe]

Kai, David, et al.--I'm a big fan of that Crippled Dick (
http://www.crippled.com/) stuff myself, Vampyros Lesbos, indeed, and
there's a remix album that has its moments, but see also the compilation
of sdtk. material by The Gert Wilden Orchestra, I Told You Not to Cry
(spy spoof type stuff) and The Schulmadchen Reports (softcore
"schoolgirl" films).  See also releases by Peter Thomas and that "Beat
at Cinecitta" series (recently heard the opening Riz Ortolani track of
Vol. 1 on a commercial somewhere) ...

But imagining anything actually "pornographic" going on to this stuff is
enetrtining in and of itself--I mean, keep in mind that Piero Umiliani's
"Mah Na Mah Na," most memorabley performed by muppets on "Sesame
Street," was excerpted from the sdtk. to a softcore documentary of sorts
(Sweden--Heaven or Hell?).  And, kai, anyone, are you familiar with an
apparent genre of German films about Native Americans ca. the late
60s-early 70s?  Have a collection of sdtk stuff from those as well,
"Indian" amongs the conifers presumably on the Rhine or somesuch on the
cover, German-language recording of "Oh, Susanna," and so forth ...

I picked up that Jess Franco album they put out (The Manacoa Experience)
for a friend, but it's not terribly distinguished.   Haven't seen
Vampyros Lesbos, the film (although I believe it's out on DVD here now),
myself, but my friend, who seems to have seen just about everything ever
filmed, and is particularly up on his European (not to mention Asian)
trash cinema, has yet to badmouth VL the way he has the rest of that
Franconian oeuvre, so ... Jean Rollin apparently directed a number of
similar French films, but haven't seen those, either, so ...

By the way, Video Watchdog is THE periodical covering such shenanigans
these days (http://www.cinemaweb.com/videowd/).  The current issue
features perennial werewolf, Paul Naschy.  Can't recall which of these
my friend said was the one mag to survive the split with its credentials
(such as they are) intact, but see also Asian Cult Cinema and/or
European Trash Cinema.  As well as ...

Tohill, Cahal and Pete Tombs.  Immoral Tales: European Sex and
    Horror Movies, 1956-1984.  New York: St Martins, 1995.

The Alain Robbe-Grillet films, of all things, seem the sleaziest of the
lot there ...  Mario Bava (Black Sunday, Planet of the Vampires, Danger:
Diabolik!), anyone?  See also Lucio Fulci (The Beyond, Zombie) and,
esp., Dario Argento (Suspiria, Phenomena, Profondo Rosso, et al.).  But
I've been working on them Chinese hopping vampire (gwailo, "ghost")
films myself, Mr. Vampire, New Mr. Vampire, Encounter of the Spooky
Kind,  Kung Fu Wonder Child, and, esp., the sublimely ridiculous Crazy
Safari (a.k.a. The Gods Must be Crazy III).  Hyperlinkage ...

http://www.illuminatedlantern.com/tao/crazysaf.html

http://auxfraises.com/risingsun/hong-kong/crazysafari.html

... quick bibliography ...

Bordwell, David.  Planet Hong Kong: Popular Cinema and the
    Art of Entertainment.  Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2000.

Hammond, Steven and Mike Wilkins.  Sex and Zen and a Bullet
    in the Head.  New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996.

Teo, Stephen.  Hong Kong Cinema: The Extra Dimensions.
    London/Bloomington: BFI/Indiana UP, 1988.

... a whole chapter on gwailo films in that last one, and see the list
of "Things we Learned from Watching Chinese Vampire Films" or somesuch
in S&Z&ABITH.  Remember, if you taunt the vampire, that spell keeping
him docile WILL fall off his forehead.  Hm ... for something REALLY
disturbing, albeit not exactly related ...

Hunetr, Jack D.  Eros in Hell: Sex, Blood and Madness
    in Japnese Cinema.  London: Creation, 1998.

http://www.creationbooks.com

But speaking of, remembering memoirs, am reminded that the New York
Review of Books has at long last put an English trans. of Judge
Schreber's Memoirs of My Nervous Illness back in print--cover-to-cover
nuttiness there, as Herr Doktor Freud could tell you (in the meantime,
Friedrich Kittler [Discourse Networks 1800/1900] considers it a
neglected modern masterpiece, and it is).  Which also reminds me, er,
Pynchon ("nothing is unrealted") ...