Spotted!!!

Spotted!!! Austrian actress Marisa Mell and her friend Italian actress Claudia Cardinale on their way together to the United States at the Aerporti di Roma (Italy) in the week of June 23rd, 1967. Miss Mell will go to New York to start her negotiations with Broadway producer David Merrick to star in his new musical Mata Hari, about the World War I-spy, while Miss Cardinale will start filming her next movie project called "All Heroes Die" in Hollywood with co-star Rod Taylor. Both productions will have their premieres hopefully in the course of next year. We'll keep you posted! xoxo Gossip Boy

DIABOLIK - Mike Patton´s Mondo Cane-Deep Deep Down

One of the best alternative versions of Deep Deep Down from the movie "Danger: Diabolik!" Enjoy!

Diabolik on iPhone

The Italian fumetti can now be read on your iPhone! This clip shows you how to do it! Best part: the fumetti is in English and in color!

"Danger: Diabolik!" in the Italian TV programm "Tempi Dispari"

Diabolik and the movie version of the fumetti "Danger: Diabolik!" were subject of discussion on the Italian interview programm "Tempi Dispari" from Rai News 24! The guests were Mario Gomboli, editor at "Casa Astorina", publisher of the Diabolik and David Barzi, author of the autobiography "Le Regine dell Terrore" about the lives of the Diabolik creators the sisters Angela en Luciana Giussani!

Stunning photo of Marisa Mell (6)

This photo is taken from Marisa Mell's first Italian movie "Casanova '70" in the mid sixties! Did you know that the director Mario Monicelli, co-writer with Tonino Guerra, was nominated for the Academy Award for writing the best original screenplay in 1965? The Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay is the award for the best script not based upon previously published material. He did not win. The Oscar went that year to Frederic Raphael for his movie script "Darling". Monicelli did win later that year the award as best director at the San Sebastian Film Festival in Spain together with Marcello Mastroianni as best actor.

Thanks to André Schneider for providing this beautiful picture!

TEASER FOUR

Which movie star is getting ready in her Rolls Royce to meet Marisa Mell for a trip abroad???

How "Marisa Mell" became "Edwige Fenech"!

Back in the days before the Internet, fans of Euro Cult movies like Giallo, Eurospy and Spaghetti Westerns... often had a hard time to find more info about their beloved movies, directors and stars. They were often viewed as trash, B-Z movies or whatever kind of name they came up with to put on them! Thankfully some hard core fans in Europe found it their duty to write and publish about them by publishing fan magazines like the still excellent "Cine Zine Zone" (1978-2003) in France by the sadly missed Pierre Charles, who published 136 issues of his magazine (with one special issue entirely dedicated to Marisa Mell in his series "Les Déesses du Cinema du Quartier")
or the British publication "Giallo Pages" by John Martin, known as one of the überfans of the Italian movies and his love for everthing giallo.The first issue of Giallo Pages was published in 1993 with cover date March/April/May. It had among other items an interview with Dario Argento, Michele Soavi, David Warbeck... and because Marisa Mell had died a year before an obituary called "Goodbye Marisa Mell". The cover of this issue was quite shocking composing two movie stills "Antropophagus" with George Eastman and "L'orribile segreto del Dr. Hichcock" with Barbara Steele. In the lower right hand corner you got a little daring photo of a semi nude Marisa Mell from her best movie for many fans "Una Sull'Altra" by Lucio Fulci.

Publishing a magazine of any kind is a hard business because it asks a lot of time, money, creativity and endurance from the publisher or editor to keep on publishing. Not many people were able to copy the gigantic work of Pierre Charles with his magazine Cine Zine Zone. So John Martin ceased to publish his magazine after a 6 issue run in May of 1999 (Cover: a white dressed Diabolik). Giallo Pages had not a big print run but had excellent articles so many fans, especially in the USA, who had missed the first issues were looking for these hard to find issues to complete their collection in a pre-Ebay time when instant gratification did not exist like it does today. American publisher "Draculina Publishing" took the opportunity in 1996 and published an American version of the first issue of Giallo Pages. The publisher did not copy the original British issue to an American version but took some liberties for the American market!

They dropped the editoral page together with the Giallo Pages logo. Three illustrations from the content page were deleted. Pages 9, 11 and 15 have differences in illustrations than the original. Page 43 with the Marisa Mell obituary is missing completely. The "Trauma" back cover is replaced by a "Danger Diabolik" photo. On the cover Marisa Mell with her breasts in full is replaced by Edwige Fenech covering her breasts. The publisher forgot on the American version to remove the reference to the Marisa Mell orbituary called "Marisa Mell Remembered". Why did the publisher change Marisa Mell to Edwige Fenech? Probably because the photo of Marisa Mell is quite daring with her arms in the air and her breast in full view for an American market at that time. Or maybe he tought that Edwige Fenech was more known to the American Euro Cult fans than Marisa Mell who had not made many films since the 80's and had almost slipt into obscurity. Who knows! Fact is that only issue # 1 got reprinted.

Powers of Diabolik!

The movie "Danger: Diabolik!" directed by cult master Mario Bava with John Phillip Law as Diabolik and Marisa Mell as Lady Eva Kant is one, if not, THE ultimate psychedelic movie from the end of the sixties! Although the movie was filmed in 1967, it obtained his copyright in 1968. The movie was not a success when it was originally released, but during the following years, it graduately climbed the ladder of cult success untill it reached the number "1" spot, keeping it to this day. So it isn't strange that during these years, a lot of young people became influenced during their formative years by this movie, his director and his vision. One of these Diabolik infected artists is Michael Avon Oeming. Michael Avond Oeming is best known in the comics world as author and especially as artist for his stark art style which he uses for telling sophisticated and mature subject matters. His most famous comic is called "Powers"! Powers is set in a world where superpowers are relatively common but not mundane. It follows the lives of two detectives, Christian Walker and Deena Pilgrim, police officers in a Homicide department devoted to cases that involve "powers" (= people with superpowers). Walker himself used to be a costumed superhero named Diamond, but became a police officer after he lost his abilities. Though stripped of his powers, he still retains his contacts within the superhero community, even becoming engaged to an ex-colleague, who is later killed. In later issues, Walker is offered the chance to become the world's latest secret Guardian as part of The Millennium Guard, a secret group of intergalactic guardians, accepting the responsibility and the powers that come with it. Deena Pilgrim, his partner, is also hiding at least one troubling secret. She contracted superpowers during a fight with an underworld thug named the Bug, an event which she kept under wraps. As a result of this, she unintentionally kills her abusive boyfriend in self-defense, and hides the evidence, although coming under investigation by Internal Affairs.

When publishing house TwoMorrows, specialised in celebrating the art and history of comics, asked Oeming to make a cover for their 6th issue of "Write Now", cover date July, 2004, he found his cover idea rather quick by going back to his childhood memory of the movie "Danger: Diabolik!" and selecting one of the most recognizable photos of the cult couple and transforming it with his own creations into the present cover at the beginning of the entry.

"Venusberg" Premiere!

In the winter of 1962/1963 Marisa Mell became a member of the ensemble cast for the German movie "Venusberg". A story of 7 women who retraited to a holliday house of Marisa Mell's charachter Florentine on a snowed under mountain slope to solve their personal problems while waiting for a man who doesn't show up but gives them more than enough time to do a pre-Sex and the City endless talk among each other! So the entire cast ist made up of only women and the voice-over of a gynecologist is the only male presence in the movie! This photo shows the director Rolf Thiele, writer and director, with 4 of his cast members, celebrating the premiere of the movie in Hamburg (Germany) on April 26th, 1963. They are from left to right: Nicole Badal as Pony, Marisa Mell as Florentine, and ? and ?. Because this is also a lost Marisa Mell movie, I can not at the moment retrace the names of the other actresses. My own archive is inconclusive about their names!

April 1st - April Fool's Day

On Tuesday April 1st 1980 the local German newspaper "Hamburger Abendblatt" published in their edition this article about the pregnancy of Marisa Mell. (See previous entry on this blog!) The casual reader, who is not familiar with the life of Marisa Mell, accepts the info in this little article as true, but the more informed reader who had followed her life in the papers and yellow press knows that this article is a hoax for April 1st or April Fool's Day. Finding the origin of April Fools' Day is not easy and is probably lost in history. Some theory claimes that this day was first celebrated soon after the adoption of the Gregorian Calender which we still use today and that the term referred to someone still adhering to the previous Julian Calender, which it replaced. Another theory from pre-christian cultures tells us that May 1st, of May Day was celebrated as the first day of summer, and signalled the start of the spring planting season. An April Fool was someone who did this prematurely. Still another theory claims that April 1st was counted as the first day of the year in France. When King Charles IX changed it to January 1st, some people stayed with April 1st. Those who did were called "April Fools" and were taunted by their neighbors. And many other theories excist. What was the wrong info in the article that gave it away as a hoax? The relationship with Pier Luigi Torri had ended at the beginning of the 70's, so she was not engaged anymore to him. Marisa Mell was born in 1939 and was 41 years old at the time of publication and not as the article claims 35. It has to be said that sometimes in other articles Marisa Mell did change her age by dropping three years of her real age. She did have a relationship with the actor Gianni Macchia and they did make several fims together but that relationship was also over in 1980. The photo they used is a photo of the beginnen of the 70's and not one of 1980. And finally the name of the future baby does sound strange as "Eurasia" but stranger names have been given to childeren of movie stars! In short the whole article and last entry was one soap bubble. So be aware today!!!