Ever Haggiag Movies
In 1969, The Damned (La caduta degli dei) was director Luchino Visconti's most controversial film to date. Set in the 1930s, the film zeroes in on a Krupp-like family of German munition manufacturers. The Essenbeck clan is headed by the Baron (Rene Kolldehoff), but daughter Sophie (Ingrid Thulin) wants her Nazi boyfriend to take over the business. Soon the Baron is dead and Bruckman (Dirk Bogarde) becomes company president. Son Martin (Helmut Berger) is the dope-addicted teenager who sleeps with his mother and drags her into her own dependence on drugs. Ever in pursuit of more millions to add to their already bulging coffers, the family plays along with the Nazis, descending into corruption, betrayal and murder all along the way. The film was originally released in the U.S. with an X rating. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dirk Bogarde, Ingrid Thulin, (more)
- 1969
This offbeat combination of reality and fantasy finds Glauco (Michel Piccoli) returning home from his job as an industrial engineer to find his wife (Anita Pallenberg) in bed with a headache. Deciding to fix dinner for himself, he reads from a gourmet cookbook as he watches television, or listens to the radio. He runs across an old .45 caliber handgun and he cleans the weapon between attending to his culinary creation. He later goes to bed, but rises when he is restless and goes to make love with the maid (Annie Girardot), after which he examines the newly painted revolver. After shooting his wife to death, he imagines he is driven to the ocean where he swims out to a boat bound for Tahiti and takes a job as a cook. The title is a reference to the notorious American gangster who could shoot his way out of any place but the police line in front of Chicago's Biograph Theater. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michel Piccoli, Anita Pallenberg, (more)
