Lara Wendel Movies
- 1991
- R
Based on the Alberto Moravia novel, Husbands and Lovers examines a modern couple's untraditional open marriage. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Julian Sands, Joanna Pacula, (more)
- 1988
This Italian haunted-house outing begins with strange, paranormal emanations being picked up as radio signals by a group of Boston youths, who trace the signal to an abandoned estate. When they enter to investigate, they are attacked by the malevolent spectre of a young girl and her sinister-looking clown doll, who manages to decimate nearly the entire cast. The ensuing mayhem incorporates some of the goriest effects ever to grace a haunted house film, including axe murders, acid baths, impalements, and decapitations -- the nastiest of which features an unfortunate teen bisected by a falling pane of glass. Despite a fairly rich atmosphere and an ominous mood, this is really just a prolonged excuse for gruesome (though, admittedly, well-staged) giallo-style death scenes. After a spooky initial setup, the endlessly repeating musical ghost-message becomes profoundly annoying. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lara Wendel, Gregg Scott, (more)
When a shell-shocked Vietnam veteran brutally murders his wife, her lover, his parents, and the pet bird, the terror is only beginning in Joe D'Amato and Claudio Lattanzi's horrific sequel to the Lucio Fulci classic Zombie. Years after the savage slaughter, an elite team of scientists studying the mating habits of rare birds in the same area encounter a malevolent blind man with a flock of vicious, bloodthirsty birds. As the team attempts to escape the cursed forest, the dead begin to rise and an unspeakable evil descends from the sky to rip the souls from the living. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Leslie Cumming, Lin Gathright, (more)
Intervista has been termed a semi-documentary: This is in fact the filmed autobiography of Italian director Federico Fellini, framed in the form of an interview conducted by a Japanese film crew. As the interview progresses Fellini's mind wanders to his earliest days (the reenacted events conflict with several of the "official" stories of his life). His fascination with filmmaking is manifested in the "wonderland" atmosphere of the old Cinecitta studios. With the cooperation of Fellini's loyal co-workers, we are permitted to see tantalizingly brief excerpts (some self-mocking) of Fellini's modus operandi. A visit by Fellini and guest-star Marcello Mastroianni to Anita Ekberg's home leads to a lavish (and poignant) "reliving" of the 1961 Fellini/Mastroianni/Ekberg effort La Dolce Vita. The climax of Intervista scene invokes Fellini's previous inward-looking classic 8 1/2, with a novel twist calculated to send the director's disciples home with a knowing smile. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Federico Fellini, Marcello Mastroianni, (more)
- 1986
In this stultifying mess, director Lamberto Bava and his co-writer, the ubiquitous Dardano Sacchetti, manage to rip off nearly every giallo cliche in history and still deliver a tedious film. Cop Leonardo Treviglio and his wife have a loud fight and she ends up stabbed to death with an ice-pick. His buddy Paolo Marco is put on the case and believes Treviglio did it, but criminal psychologist Valeria d'Obici (who often uses the technical term "maniac") believes he's innocent. She thinks it was a killer named Tribbo, who supposedly died in a fire many years before. Treviglio is shot to death by another cop, but the murders go on. Eventually, the killer follows Marco's daughter (Lara Wendel) and two friends to a secluded hotel for the lengthy final standoff. Viewers who have seen any of Dario Argento's thrillers (The Bird With the Crystal Plumage in particular) will guess who the killer is in about 15 minutes, and the hotel scenes -- borrowed wholesale from Torso -- fail to generate the least bit of suspense. It's hard to believe from a director who made the stylish A Blade in the Dark only a few years before, but even Bava's legendary father had his off-days. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
- 1985
In this understated tale of love and its convolutions, Arturo (Italian comic Enrico Montesano) is an introverted sort who oversees the programs for a flourishing private TV station. Once active in the 1968 student demonstrations, Arturo's interests have changed a little as he accumulates the material possessions that set him off as successful. Then one day his old buddy Mike (Dan Doby) shows up on his doorstep and turns Arturo's life around. Mike is a millionaire, but that did not keep him from losing his lady love Marion (Rochelle Redfield), and he is heartbroken. When Arturo sets out to get Marion and Mike back together again, he finds his own attraction to the beautiful woman is more than he can just brush off. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Enrico Montesano, Rochelle Redfield, (more)
- 1982
A divorced middle-aged Italian film director (Tomas Millian) is seeking meaning and love in both his life and his film. He becomes involved with an aristocratic woman, but trouble ensues when he begins to receive anonymous threats demanding that he abandon the relationship. When the woman mysteriously disappears, the director begins seeing an actress who works in experimental plays. She too leaves after telling him that she is carrying another man's child. In his quest for meaning, all the director manages to find is meaningless sex and lots of metaphors for isolation and abandonment: fog, open doors, empty landscapes. ~ John Voorhees, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tomas Milian, Daniela Silverio, (more)
Dario Argento leaves a distinct and bloody impression with this Italian horror film that took the slasher genre to graphic new limits at the time of its release. Novelist Peter Neal (Anthony Franciosa) jets into Rome to promote his new book. Simultaneously, a killer obsessed with Neal begins a brutal series of murders that are followed by cryptic notes to the author. Inspector Germani (Giuliano Gemma) questions Neal, who then begins his own investigation into the bizarre case with the help of his assistant, Anne (Daria Nicolodi), and local youth Gianni (Christian Borromeo). Neal and Gianni follow leads to the home of a TV talk-show host (John Steiner), who is axed to death in front of Gianni while Neal is knocked unconscious. As they close in on the killer, flashbacks show the killer's murderous beginnings and an obsession with red shoes. Meanwhile, Neal's publicist, Bullmer (John Saxon), is revealed to be having an affair with the author's ex-lover, Jane (Veronica Lario), making them both potential suspects. Inspector Germani insists that Neal leave town, but even when he does, the killer strikes again, knifing Bullmer in broad daylight. At the same time, Gianni returns to the home of the dead talk-show host and recalls an important detail about the murder. However, he is strangled before he can tell anyone. At her apartment, Jane is brutally slain just as Inspector Germani arrives to discover the murderer's identity, along with the shocking, twist-filled truth behind the entire case. ~ Patrick Legare, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anthony Franciosa, John Saxon, (more)
- 1980
The ugly duckling becomes a swan and exacts her revenge in this complex drama. All her life, the fat, homely child had been ignored by her rich, and gorgeous mother. The child bitterly resents this. Tensions explode when the daughter catches her mother in bed with her lover and the maid. The enraged mother tells the girl that she was bought from a hooker because the mother could not bear children. This drives the poor girl to suicide. She fails and is hospitalized. There she loses her weight and blossoms into a great beauty. She returns home with vengeance in her heart. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lara Wendel, Stefania Sandrelli, (more)
- 1979
Guido is an international journalist with an unusually difficult relationship with his daughter, Mimi. He hasn't seen her for several years and has just taken her away from the boarding school she was immured in. She is now 15, and for some reason is doing everything in her power to get him to have sex with her. She even brings herself to orgasm while lying in the bed next to him. He goes nearly apoplectic trying to avoid her advances. Eventually, her school chum Therese comes to visit them, and Guido at last has a semi-suitable object for his by now quite overheated passions. The story is loosely based on a novel by Guido Morselli. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Franco Nero, Dalila di Lazzaro, (more)
- 1979
- R
Ernesto (Martin Hahn) is a young Italian Jew of the early 1900s who works in his uncle's factory in Trieste. Not entirely secure with his sexual orientation, Ernesto enters into an affair with one of his uncle's employees--then experiments with heterosexuality, courtesy of an obliging prostitute. When the boy finds himself participating in an arranged marriage with the female twin of one of his male lovers, he finally makes the choice that will determine the direction of his subsequent sex life. The carnal confusion inherent in Ernesto is nothing new to director Salvatore Samperi, who has trod this path before in previous films. This particular effort was based on a novel by Umberto Saba. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Martin Halm, Michele Placido, (more)
- 1978
The French Riviera felt the heavy hand of German occupation much later than the rest of the country, and was a haven for wealthy misfits who had no other place to go to escape that regime. Despite the certain knowledge that their doom is approaching, the characters in this film party and quarrel as if their world were not disintegrating rapidly. In the main story, Konrad (Michel Piccoli), an Austrian surgeon, has fled his newly Nazified country for the Riviera. There, he encounters Laura (Lara Wendel) the 13-year-old daughter of an anti-fascist Italian Contessa (Claudia Cardinale). When the girl perceives that he loves her, she offers herself to him. Horrified, he sends her away. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michel Piccoli, Claudia Cardinale, (more)
