Gabriella Giorgetti Movies

In the grand tradition of Britain's Hammer low-budget horror films of the '60s, this Gothic and gory chiller is the third screen version of Gaston Leroux's tale The Wax Museum. The prologue is set in turn-of-the-century Paris at New Years. Just as the bells ring out, a young sleeping couple are attacked by a hooded figure whose hand has been replaced by a fearsome steel claw. Their gruesome deaths are witnessed by their unseen little girl. The story moves ahead 12 years and moves to a Roman brothel where Lucas, a young patron, accepts a bet to spend an entire evening in a particular wax museum filled with gruesome reenactments of the world's most horrible crimes. Though he knows the figures are only wax, they literally horrify Lucas to the point of death. The official cause is listed as heart failure, a fact that attracts considerable attention from the press causing the curator, Boris, to devise a new set of grim tableaux. His latest creations are chillingly real, mostly because they are real but for the special chemical Boris injects into them. The curator's diabolical schemes unravel shortly after he hires Sonia, the little girl from the prologue, as his new costumer. The museum exhibits bring her childhood trauma flooding back to the surface. Fortunately, her lover, an ingenious reporter has teamed up with a determined police inspector who has been investigating her parents' murder for the past 12 years. The film is dedicated to Lucio Fulci, one of Italy's premiere masters of schlock horror who died during production in March, 1996. He was replaced by first-time director Sergio Stivaletti. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The 12 labors of Hercules were not the objective of this film starring Lou Ferrigno as the semi-divine son of Zeus and the mortal Alcmene. Hercules must rescue Princess Cassiopea from her kidnappers, fight off grotesque laser-breathing monsters and in one case, jettison a giant bear up into space where it becomes Ursa Major, the Big Dipper or "Great Bear" constellation. Off-color (many scenes are in dim, bluish stage sets) and low-budget, this incarnation of Hercules may find unconverted viewers a difficult, 13th challenge to conquer. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

In this psychological drama, Catherine (Julie Christie) is an attractive young woman living in Rome who is infatuated with a man named Gregory, whom she's never actually met. When her father informs her that he intends to remarry, Catherine is not interested in attending the wedding until she learns that Gregory will also be a guest. She flies to Geneva for the ceremony and imagines Gregory to be an athlete in an advertising poster she sees at the airport; she's lost in fantasies about him, even as her brother Daniel (John Hurt), with whom she once had an incestuous relationship, attempts to seduce her. While she misses meeting Gregory, she does run into the sports star from the poster (Michael Sarrazin); they soon repair to a hotel where they make love. However, Catherine discovers that his chiseled looks don't match his drab personality, and she soon leaves him behind. Before returning to Rome, Catherine makes a last attempt at finding Gregory, whom she's been told is also looking for her. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

For some reason, the elongated figures limned by the highly astigmatic painter El Greco (1541-1614) perfectly suited the grandees of Spain even though they were clearly anything but realistic, and they fascinate even today. The Greek (Cretan, actually) painter's life in Spain could have served as the basis for a fascinating biography, but the makers of this film chose to concentrate on the bad ol' Inquisition and portray the painter as being warned by his girlfriend that he is being watched; as a foreigner, he is suspected of heresy. Mel Ferrer plays the painter in this historical melodrama which is not nearly as bad as it could have been. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

La Guerre Secrete is divided into four separate vignettes, each scene representing a day in the life of international espionage agents. Stories involve a secret agent (Vittorio Gassman) who goes undercover as a kidnapper, an attempt to impede a Russian attack on two submarines, and an undercover agent confronting a traitor in the Berlin offices of the CIA. Linking the stories is Robert Ryan as a US Intelligence chief. Terence Young directed the English-language sequences, while Christian-Jacques and Carlo Lizzani handled the French and Italian sequences, respectively. German director Werner Klinger's name does not appear on the US credits of The Dirty Game, inasmuch as his scenes were cut from all American prints. Dirty Game sank without a trace on its initial release, only to pop up on television, intermittently, throughout the '70s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This anthology helmed by four talented filmmakers, Claude Chabrol, Jean-Luc Godard, Hiromichi Horikawa, and Roman Polanski, allows viewers to meet and observe four international con artists. Each story is set within a different city. "Amsterdam" follows the attempts of a seductive Dutch woman to entice an elderly man into buying her an expensive necklace in exchange for sex. He does, and she immediately runs away and uses the bauble, not realizing that it is worth a fortune, to purchase a parrot. In "Paris," a con man sells a tourist rube the Eiffel Tower. The entrepreneurial dolt ends up arrested after trying to charge an admission fee to visitors. "Naples" centers on a band of hookers who listen to their pimp and seek out old men in retirement villages. They convince the old fellows to marry them so they will not be forced to leave the city. Unfortunately for the pimp, the delighted geezers will not allow their brides to work. In the grim finale "Tokyo," a greedy Japanese barmaid serves her aged escort too many noodles. He promptly chokes to death and after he falls, she yanks out his teeth and runs them to a pawn shop. She is hoping they are platinum. They aren't and she is arrested for murder. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The Organizer (I Compagni) takes a gritty, near-documentary approach to its subject matter: the exploitation of Italian laborers in the 19th century. Shorn of all his studio-imposed glamour, Marcello Mastrioanni plays a Genoan political refugee visiting a friend in Turin. Appalled by the horrible working conditions in the town's textile mill, Mastrioanni stays on to organize the workers in a strike. Though he is nearly killed several times, Mastrioanni survives to set an example for the workers, who rally together into a powerful union. The fact that Marcello Mastrioanni was bearded and bespectacled in the manner of a Bolshevist radical was enough for The Organizer to be condemned by certain extreme anti-Communist elements in Hollywood--to no avail, since the film was nominated for an American Oscar, and even given a commendation by the ultraconservative National Board of Review. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A very young Bernardo Bertolucci already shows his talent in this bleak, 94-minute murder mystery, told in an interesting series of flashbacks. A Roman prostitute has been brutally murdered in a park near the Tiber River and in order to forward their investigation, the police corner a handful of people who were in the park at the time. As they separately tell their versions of why they were there and what they did, their narrations do not necessarily match the images on the screen that do reflect the truth. By the time all the flashbacks have been completed, a real picture of the crime emerges, revealing that one of those in custody is the killer. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide