Klaus Kinski Movies

Director Mario Caiano, best known for the gorgeous horror film Amanti d'Oltretomba, made eleven Westerns in his career, but none as strange as this one. Perhaps it might help some to recall that the TV-series Kung Fu was enjoying great popularity at around the same time employing a similar East-meets-West theme. This film is much more grim and bloody, however, as it tells the tale of a Chinese man (Chen Lee) who travels to San Francisco in 1882. Looking for a better life, all he finds is scum -- racists, perverts, slavers, greedy conmen and mercenaries. Naturally, the gentle mystic must fight to find inner peace. Lee's major weapon -- aside from knives and lethal yo-yos -- is a devastating punch that rams all the way through his opponents' bodies. But that isn't the half of it. A cardshark gets his eyes gouged out in revolting detail, people are beaten to bloody pulp, and the villain of the piece (Klaus Kinski in a fascinating performance) is Scalper Jack, a mincing, sadistic bounty-hunter who tortures and skins his victims alive. A depressing and violent film, this exercise in bloodletting is powerful stuff and well-acted by a veteran cast including Giacomo Rossi Stuart, Claudio Undari and Gordon Mitchell, who also appeared in Caiano's Erik IL Vichingo. Adalberto Albertini made an unfortunate comic sequel the following year with Kinski (in a different role) and Lee. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide

Fernando DiLeo, best known for a series of westerns and crime films, tried his hand at horror with this extremely sick little item loaded with nudity and violence. Set at a remote mental institution (inexplicably located in a castle), the film features Klaus Kinski as a doctor whose mostly female patients are being brutally dispatched by a psychopath. Margaret Lee and Rosalba Neri are among the frequently unclothed cast, and there are decapitations, crossbow bolts in the eye, and -- in some foreign prints -- fairly explicit sex. Nothing in the film, however, is as tasteless as its original ad campaign, which played up its similarity to the crimes of Chicago mass-murderer Richard Speck (who actually killed student nurses and not patients). ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide

This audaciously dishonest spaghetti western from prolific director Demofilo Fidani (using the pseudonym "Lucky Dickerson") was created piecemeal using lengthy sequences from Fidani's previous films. The premise has legendary gunslinger Django (Hunt Powers) recounting some of his greatest adventures to a rapt Wild Bill Hickock (Dino Strano as "Dean Stratford") in a saloon. The stories which Django tells are entire scenes from such Fidani films as Arrivano Django e Sartana...E la Fine! (1970), Inginocchiati Straniero...i Cadaveri non Fanno Ombra (1971), and Quel Maledetto Giorno d'Inverno Django e Sartana...all'Ultimo Sangue (1971). Fidani regulars Gordon Mitchell, Dennis Colt, and Lucky McMurray also appear. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide

When the leader of a criminal band travels to Mexico in search of a fortune in stolen gold, he promises to reward a man with a portion of the treasure if he can lead them to its hiding place. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide

In this remake of his own La Danza Macabra, director Antonio Margheriti casts Anthony Franciosa as writer Alan Foster, who accepts a bet from Edgar Allan Poe (Klaus Kinski) and his friend Thomas Blackwood (Enrico Osterman). No one has ever survived a night in Blackwood's castle, but the skeptical Foster gladly accepts the dare. The castle is striking and scary, which soon begins to affect Foster's mind. He meets Blackwood's sister Elisabeth (Michele Mercier) and the jealous Julia (Karin Field). Julia's portrait had intrigued him earlier, but it is Elisabeth whom Foster beds, only to see her stabbed by a stranger. The attacker's body vanishes after Foster kills him, and he quickly realizes that the castle is inhabited by vampiric ghosts. Foster must survive the horrors of the night and hold on to not only his life, but his sanity as well. This is an atmospheric film, full of crypts, skulls and mist, and Margheriti's direction is assured. The acting is solid all around, with a fine supporting cast including Peter Carsten, Raf Baldassare, and Silvano Tranquilli, though fans of the original might miss Barbara Steele just a little. Overall, this is a worthy remake with some spooky moments and a well-written script by Bruno Corbucci and Giovanni Grimaldi. The music was composed by the prolific Riz Ortolani. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide

A network of spies affects the lives of people in and out of the organization in this routine espionage drama. Dominique (Stephane Audran) is the neglected wife of a spy who tracks him down at a Paris antique shop. Finding him with a female spy, the enraged wife shoots both of them. Dominique hides out on a boat while the police investigate the murders, and international spies scramble to recover some missing microfilm. Helen (Lilli Palmer) is the spy boss who orders a hit man (Klaus Kinski) to go after Dominique. Michel Constantine also appears in this fragmented feature ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Not to be confused with Massimo Dallamano's contemporaneous treatment of the Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch classic, this unrelated (but quite entertaining) thriller from cult director Jesus Franco was originally known as Black Angel. James Darren stars as Jimmy Logan, an American jazz musician in Turkey who finds the body of a dead girl washed ashore while coming down from an LSD trip on the beach. The woman, Wanda Reed (Maria Rohm), had been murdered by the sadistic Ahmed Kortobawi (Klaus Kinski) Percival Kapp (Dennis Price), and a lesbian fashion-photographer named Olga (Margaret Lee). Some time later, Jimmy goes to work in a Rio de Janeiro nightclub and moves in with Rita (Barbara McNair), a beautiful black singer. One day, a woman named Venus enters the club, and is a dead ringer for Wanda Reed. When the murders begin, the only motive seems to be revenge from beyond the grave. This well-made shocker contains some enjoyable songs and cameo appearances by the director and Manfred Mann as jazz musicians, as well as being the best of numerous collaborations between Franco and British producer Harry Alan Towers. Prints run 90 and 86 minutes. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide

Klaus Kinski, who apparently accepted every script that was shoved under his door, heads the cast of the Italian Gangster's Law. Kinski plays a Mafia boss, caught in a web of intrigue, deceit, and blood oaths. Likewise enmeshed in the bloody plot convolutions are Maurice Poll, Suzy Andersen, and Max Delys. Kinski enjoys relative immunity from arrest until making that One False Step. The photography and action is on a slightly higher level than the hit-and-miss English dubbing. So far as we can ascertain, Kinski dashed off Gangster's Law sometime between his more prestigious assignments The Little Drummer Girl and Cobra Verde. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Italian filmmaker Sergio Corbucci directed this serious-minded populist spin on the spaghetti western, starring Jean-Louis Trintignant as Silence, whose vocal cords have been slashed by sadistic bounty-hunters. Silence joins with local hillfolk in fighting the corrupt and tyrannical authorities in the town of Snow Mill. Corbucci's sympathies are clearly with his bandit heroes, who are only doing what they must to survive, while the law is represented by a corrupt sheriff, who lets his wealthy patrons run wild, and sadistic scum like Klaus Kinski, who kills the poor because he enjoys it. Politically charged in a way that only a film of its time could be, Il Grande Silenzio's themes of class struggle and violent revolution were a bit too hot for an American release in 1968. Vonetta McGee co-starred with genre regulars Frank Wolff, Luigi Pistilli, and Raf Baldassare. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide