The Moseby Confidential Files (Laura Gemser in the Seventies) El Periscopio (1979)

***A promotional shot of Laura Gemser in the seventies***

While he is primarily known as a director of horror films, with Vampyres being the most celebrated, and thrillers, the masterful Symptoms standing as his greatest work, Spanish filmmaker Jose Ramon Larraz has worked in a number of, sometimes surprising, genres including comedies. While not among his more notable films, El Periscopio, a sex-comedy from 1979 starring a lovely Laura Gemser remains a lightly perverse and fitfully funny film that is worth seeking out for fans of this iconic director, as well as its popular star.

Larraz was turning fifty years old when El Periscopio hit the European film market in 1979. Given the more provocative title And Give Us Our Daily Sex in some English language markets, El Periscopio wouldn't turn out to be a great success for Larraz but it would provide an interesting conclusion to his powerful seventies output. Sandwiched in between the relatively obscure The Golden Lady (1979) and the underrated Stigma (1980), El Periscopio is the most lightweight film Larraz ever shot, a deliberately ridiculous and goofy work centering on a teenagers obsessive peeping at two often-undressed nurses who are his neighbors. Even though it is bogged down by a series of bizarre subplots, El Periscopio ultimately succeeds as a sexy dumbed-down farce precisely because Larraz understood the type of film he was making. In other words, El Periscopio is the kind of intellectually vacant film only a very intelligent director could successfully make.

While preparing El Periscopio in 1978 Larraz handed over his story idea to none other Sergio Garrone, the writer and director of some of the most deranged and infamous Italian exploitation films of the sixties and seventies, including Kill Django...Kill First and SS Experiment Love Camp. Garrone would end up penning the final screenplay for Larraz but his work would turn out to be surprisingly soft as well. While El Periscopio is slightly seedy, and surprisingly explicit, in spots, this is a rather tame collaboration from the minds of Larraz and Garrone, a collaboration that could have proven very dangerous indeed had the two been looking to make something truly disturbing.

Exploitation fans will notice several familiar, and welcome, names on the credits of El Periscopio including composer Ubaldo Continiello (he would provide the excellent score for Lamberto Bava's terrific Macabre less than a year later) and former Pasolini cinematographer and future director Roberto Girometti, who photographed the film. In front of the camera, we have a few familiar faces as well including Gabriele Tinti and, of course, Laura Gemser.

While El Periscopio will be of interest to fans of Jose Larraz, perhaps the reason most will want to seek it out will be due to the presence of Laura Gemser. The Indonesian beauty had been working almost nonstop in the five or six years leading up to El Periscopio and she's a pleasure to watch in the film, even though Larraz doesn't ask much of her. Still, Gemser manages to be both funny and sexy and, I suspect, the role must have felt like a breeze after the globe-hopping films she had been making mostly with Joe D'Amato.

El Periscopio remains one of the more elusive films that Laura Gemser shot in the seventies. My version comes from an imported VHS English language dub that leaves a lot to be desired visually, but at least appears to be taken from an uncut print. Considering the considerable cult followings that both Laura Gemser and Jose Larraz have a proper release on disc would be most welcome.

'Something is about to happen': Celia Novis' on Vampyres and other Symptoms (2011)

Few filmmakers that came out of the seventies were more intriguing and, at times, as brilliant as Barcelona born José Ramón Larraz, a directer who really earned the often overused description of maverick. Throughout the seventies, Larraz made a series of extremely startling and wholly unique works that were equal parts shocking, haunting and unforgettable. Strangely the only Larraz film that has consistently been easily available to American audiences is his mesmerizing Vampyres (1975) with equally compelling titles like Whirlpool (1970), Deviation (1971), The House that Vanished (1974), The Coming of Sin (1978) and his masterpiece Symptoms (1974) languishing in the hands of collectors who found them via grey-market copies. Unlike say Jess Franco and Jean Rollin, the majority of work from José Ramón Larraz has remained hidden to even some of the most die-hard cult horror and exploitation fans, which is a real pity.

While watching Celia Novis' striking new documentary, on Vampyres and other Symptoms, I got the exhilarating feeling that perhaps the acceptance of José Ramón Larraz's importance is finally on the horizon. Novis' fascinating film, which is among the most unique and moving documentaries I have seen in some time, makes the case for José Larraz by bypassing the usual talking heads style that is typical for these kinds of films and instead uses his own art, films and words to tell his story. on Vampyres and other Symptoms is a real poetic piece of filmmaking that plays by its own rules and shows Larraz as a true auteur whose art and life are truly interconnected and sometimes indistinguishable.

It is the voice and writing (sometimes spoken by Vampyres Marianne Morris and Anulka) of the now 83 year old Larraz that guides Celia Novis' on Vampyres and other Symptoms. We follow Larraz on his oddysey though his own writings, his artwork, films and interviews and find that his feelings on life, and particularly death, are as distinct as his greatest films. Novis often allows a blurring between Larraz and his works and this gives on Vampyres and other Symptoms a wonderful dreamlike and narcotic quality; at times it feels like Larraz is traveling back in time to participate as a character in his own films. Using a powerful non-linear approach, Novis offers up a penetrating portrait of an artist driven by the characters and situations he created on paper and film.

Novis also offers up a potent reminder as to just how great films like Vampyres and Symptoms are through a series of film clips that show Larraz as a director who, at his best, was able to combine the paranoid intensity of Polanski with the dynamic eroticism of Borowczyk. In other words, there simply isn't anything else quite like the best works of José Ramón Larraz. They occupy a very specific and special place, as does Celia Novis' on Vampyres and other Symptoms.

More information Celia Novis' on Vampyres and other Symptoms can be found at this official site. The film is currently playing various film festivals and I sincerely hope that an American distributor picks it up for American release in the future. As a matter of fact, it would make an essential companion piece to the jaw-dropping Symptoms, one of the great, great films that has still not seen a proper release on disc anywhere. Criterion take note.

Cinebeats Look At Jose Larraz's Scream And Die

Kimberly from Cinebeats has posted a really excellent look at one of my favorite Jose Larraz films and it can be read at this link. The film is often overlooked as one of Larraz's major works but I find it to be an extremely effective work that gets better with each viewing. SCREAM AND DIE (1973) is probably its most well known title here in the States but it has also gone under the names DON'T GO INTO THE BEDROOM and perhaps the one I prefer, THE HOUSE THAT VANISHED. Kimberly's look at it is exceptional and I highly recommend it.

"Something is About to Happen, Something Final": Jose Larraz's Symptoms

My original version of this article can be found at this link. The following is a slightly revamped version for Moon In The Gutter.

"Last night I dreamed they had returned. They were here again, just like in other dreams, but this time it was more confused. I have a feeling that something is about to happen, something final in which I will be involved."
-Jose Larraz, SYMPTOMS-

Spanish writer and director Jose Ramon Larraz is best known in the United States for his brutally erotic, audacious and influential horror film, VAMPYRES (1974), but the fascinating Larraz has always been much more than just a typical horror filmmaker.
Born in Barcelona in 1929, Larraz made his directorial debut with 1970’s WHIRLPOOL, a wild and inventive low budget film that proved a minor success. WHIRLPOOL led to the equally compelling DEVIATION (1971) and finally to his financial and artistic breakthrough, VAMPYRES.
Larraz was expected to follow up VAMPYRES with another erotic and violent horror film, but instead he delivered a psychologically devastating and genuinely frightening work that was nominated for the Cannes Golden Palm in 1974 before disappearing shortly after.
SYMPTOMS (1974) is, along with Roman Polanski’s REPULSION (1965) and Richard Loncraine’s FULL CIRCLE (1977), probably the best film ever made about a woman slowly slipping completely into madness. Shot quickly in England on a relatively low budget in early 1974 and rushed to the Cannes film festival that summer, SYMPTOMS is one of the great-lost films of the seventies and warrants major reconsideration.
The plot of SYMPTOMS, featuring a woman lost in solitude, a creepy old house, a nosy groundskeeper and other often used genre elements, isn’t that noteworthy. What is noteworthy is Larraz’s unsettling style and his camera’s unshakable obsession with his leading lady, the very haunted looking and remarkably talented Angela Pleasence.
Pleasence is probably best known to American audiences as the daughter of the very well respected late British actor, Donald Pleasence. Angela began appearing on British television in her early twenties and made her big screen debut in the delightful HERE WE GO ROUND THE MULBERRY BUSH (1967). She would prove very memorable in the 1973 Amicus anthology film FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE but SYMPTOMS would give her the first lead role of her career, and one of the best parts she has ever gotten to play.

Joining Pleasence were a small group of notable British actors including Michael Brady, Lorna Heilbron, Peter Vaughan and Marie-Paule Mailleux, but it is Pleasence’s film all the way though. Much like Polanski and Loncraine used their leading actresses, respectively Catherine Deneuve and Mia Farrow, in nearly every scene of their great essays on madness, Angela Pleasence dominates almost every frame of Larraz’s film with an eerie near silent work that is among the best genre performances of the seventies.
Much of the credit for SYMPTOMS hypnotic power should go to Editor Brian Smedley-Aston who manages to match the obsessive and lingering directorial style of Larraz with a sharp and consistently inventive cutting technique. Aston had handled the legendary PERFORMANCE for Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg in 1970 and was a perfect choice for SYMPTOMS. Larraz’s film could have been overwhelming cold and near impossible to watch, but Aston manages to cut the scenes in a way that allows them to retain their voyeuristic nature but never allows them to outstay their welcome.
A relative novice, Trevor Warren, is credited with the film’s striking cinematography, but I suspect that Larraz was the one really responsible for the films unforgettable photography. The look of the film balances perfectly the languid and lovely British countryside shots with the terrifyingly dark and oppressive interior work. Where as REPULSION used black and white photography and shadows to highlight Deneuve’s increasingly paranoid state, Larraz lets the lovely color outdoor photography of the film become an impenetrable foil for Pleasence’s iced over interior landscape.
The prolific jazz oriented composer John Scott provides the near silent film with a lovely soundscape punctuated by a series of sharp and memorable musical cues. Also worth noting is that Larraz wisely hunted down STRAW DOGS art director Ken Bridgeman to design the lovely, but prison like, interiors of Pleasence’s house and the film does indeed resemble that Peckinpah masterpiece on several occasions.
When the film premiered at the Cannes film festival in 1973 it got some major word of mouth going, and Larraz was nominated for the Golden Palm but he failed to secure a substantial distribution deal. One especially outspoken admirer of it was Jack Nicholson who proclaimed it a masterpiece but even his strong vote of endorsement didn’t help. SYMPTOMS would encounter distribution problems immediately and wouldn’t get an American release until over two years later when it was retitled THE BLOOD VIRGIN, and put on the second half of a handful of drive in bills. It would seemingly disappear completely afterwards and has since only been seen in poor quality grey market prints.

Artistically the failure of SYMPTOMS affected Larraz in a great way, and it would take him over five years to make another film worthy of his best work, the surreal and bitter THE COMING OF SIN (1978). His filmography since has been filled with a series of interesting if under developed films. Despite being undeniably talented and innovative, Larraz has never again made a film as masterful as SYMPTOMS.
The time is right for SYMPTOMS to be rediscovered. Several of Larraz’s works have been made available on DVD in the past few years and a release of SYMPTOMS would serve as a sharp reminder of one of Spain’s great talents and individuals. The depth and subtlety present in SYMPTOMS might surprise film fans that have always thought of Larraz as just a filmmaker of brutality and extremes. SYMPTOMS is a truly inspired and fine piece of filmmaking that deserves the opportunity to be seen by more film lovers.

For more on Larraz and SYMPTOMS please seek out the amazing IMMORAL TALES by Cahal Tohill and Pete Tombs. It is one of the most indispensable film books in my collection, and their writing on Larraz and SYMPTOMS is extraordinary.

Also Horror Express has a look at the film here, and some of the above stills are taken from that piece.

My Article On Larraz's Symptoms at Amplifier

My new Amplifier article is up if anyone would like to come over and give a look. This one is on another great lost film of the seventies, Jose Larraz's VAMPYRES follow up, SYMPTOMS.
I first read about this startling film in the great Tohill and Tombs book IMMORAL TALES back in the mid nineties and I secured a copy from Craig Ledbetter's European Trash Cinema shortly after. It is a film that I admire greatly and I find its current missing in action status very disappointing.
I invite anyone to come over and read my thoughts on the film and comments are very appreciated over there so leave a note if you can.
The direct link is below and I will provide a permanent link for Amplifier over to the right.

http://www.bgdailynews.com/articles/2007/09/08/the_amplifier/stage_and_screen/9970undervaluedclassics-symptoms.txt

Thanks.