During the height of her professional life Marisa Mell was often the guest of honor at high end social gatherings. Being the guest of honor requered to sit next to the host of the evening. In this case with producer Moustapha Akka. He was a Syrian American producer and director, best known for producing the series of "Halloween" films and directing Mohammed, Messenger of God and Lion of the Desert. Moustapha Akka was sadly killed along with his daughter Rima Akkad Monla on November 11th in 2005 in Amman, Jordan by an Al-Qaeda suicide bomber. What makes this photo fascinating is the fact that Marisa Mell must have heard a story or seen someone in the room that evening that makes her startle so much that she opened her eyes in shock and looks astonished about the heard or seen which she obviously can not believe.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Shock!
During the height of her professional life Marisa Mell was often the guest of honor at high end social gatherings. Being the guest of honor requered to sit next to the host of the evening. In this case with producer Moustapha Akka. He was a Syrian American producer and director, best known for producing the series of "Halloween" films and directing Mohammed, Messenger of God and Lion of the Desert. Moustapha Akka was sadly killed along with his daughter Rima Akkad Monla on November 11th in 2005 in Amman, Jordan by an Al-Qaeda suicide bomber. What makes this photo fascinating is the fact that Marisa Mell must have heard a story or seen someone in the room that evening that makes her startle so much that she opened her eyes in shock and looks astonished about the heard or seen which she obviously can not believe.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
It is all about the dress!
During the height of the Spy-Craze in 1966, Marisa Mell played the part of Charity Farrel in the secret agent movie "New York Chiama Super Drago", directed by Georgio Ferroni. In this movie, she is some kind of a double agent luring our secret agent Super Drago into a trap and in the end regretting it by paying with her life! 
Marisa Mell was dressed for this production by Adriana Berselli a costume designer and costumière with quite a reputation in this field working for movies during her career like "L' Aventurra" by Michelangelo Antonioni with Monica Vitti or "The Cassandra Crossing" by George Cosmatos with Sophia
Loren. A grey-blue-ish sleeveless evening dress worn by Marisa Mell catches the eye in this movie. It was so popular by the producers that it got a prominent place on most of the lobby cards and the poster promoting the movie. But that was not enough. For the Italian lobby card of the French movie "Le Train d' Enfer" from 1965 with Jean Marais as leading man, released a year later in Italy, the producers of that movie, took the Marisa Mell shot from New York Chiama Super Drago and incorporated it into their own lobby card with title "Danger Dimensione Morte" to make the scene more exiciting. The only difference is that the dress is now some kind of ruby red in stead of grey-blue. This was common practice during the booming days of Euro cult movies especially for Spaghetti Westerns with more than 800 movies produced. So finding a good motive for a lobby card or poster was not easy. After a certain time the production designers ran out of motives and copied motives from other movies that got the most success and transfered them to their own movie posters and lobby cards. Work done!
Loren. A grey-blue-ish sleeveless evening dress worn by Marisa Mell catches the eye in this movie. It was so popular by the producers that it got a prominent place on most of the lobby cards and the poster promoting the movie. But that was not enough. For the Italian lobby card of the French movie "Le Train d' Enfer" from 1965 with Jean Marais as leading man, released a year later in Italy, the producers of that movie, took the Marisa Mell shot from New York Chiama Super Drago and incorporated it into their own lobby card with title "Danger Dimensione Morte" to make the scene more exiciting. The only difference is that the dress is now some kind of ruby red in stead of grey-blue. This was common practice during the booming days of Euro cult movies especially for Spaghetti Westerns with more than 800 movies produced. So finding a good motive for a lobby card or poster was not easy. After a certain time the production designers ran out of motives and copied motives from other movies that got the most success and transfered them to their own movie posters and lobby cards. Work done!Thursday, February 18, 2010
Bedelia Kellerman
At the end of the 1970's in 1979 at age 40, Marisa Mell was at the height of her stunnig beauty with a face like a Greek goddess characterized by her full lips, almond shaped emerald green colored eyes and her thick dark chestnut color hair. Professionally that year was a rather slow year with only one movie "Un Ombra nell'Ombra", a cinema bis Exorcist rip off and a leading part as drug dealer "Bedelia Kellerman" in the South of France during one episode of a French comedy/crime series called "Sam et Sally" that aired on the second national television station "Antenne 2". The series is now available on DVD and can be purchased at "Amazon.fr" in France.
Thanks to Marisa Mell fan "Naldo" for giving the golden tip! If you have in your personal archive rare photo's, interviews, movies or any other Marisa Mell memorabelia, the Marisa Mell Blog would like to hear from you:
because we are always on the look out for new material, especially her "lost" movies like Ein Mann im schönsten Alter, Diamond Walkers, La Tempesta...
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Vogue, March 15th, 1968 issue
Marisa Mell wearing bouffant hair by Suga of Kenneth, photographed by Arthur Elgort for the March 15th, 1968 Vogue issue!Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Segretissimi-Guida Agli Spy-Movie Italiani Anni '60
Domenica 7 Marzo - Torino (Italia) presso FNAC, Via Roma, 56 Presentazione del volume "SEGRETISSIMI - GUIDA AGLI SPY-MOVIE ITALIANI ANNI '60" Interverrà l'autore Daniele Magni coadiuvato da Stefano Di Marino e da Manuel Cavenaghi Ospite d'onore l'agente 3S3 Giorgio Ardisson Seguirà proiezione del film "AGENTE 3S3 PASSAPORTO PER L'INFERNO". Tutti conoscono James Bond, l’agente 007.
Ma quanti si ricordano dell’agente 077, o dell’agente Joe Walker, o ancora dell’agente 3S3, emuli poveri made in Italy del celeberrimo personaggio inventato da Ian Fleming? Eppure, ognuno di questi personaggi ha avuto tanto successo da essere stato protagonista non di uno, ma di una serie di film. Nel giro di poche stagioni cinematografiche, tra il 1965 e il 1968, l’Italia produsse (o meglio co-produsse, dato che sono rarissimi i film completamente made in Italy) poco meno di duecento pellicole riconducibili al genere spionistico, sull’onda del successo dei film di 007. Una mole di prodotti che non può, per la legge dei grandi numeri, non contenere almeno una manciata di titoli meritevoli di riscoperta. Seguiteci in questo viaggio in uno dei generi meno indagati del cinema popolare italiano, e vi sorprenderete nello scoprire quanti (e quali!) agenti con licenza di uccidere sono partiti da Cinecittà alla conquista del mondo.
Ma quanti si ricordano dell’agente 077, o dell’agente Joe Walker, o ancora dell’agente 3S3, emuli poveri made in Italy del celeberrimo personaggio inventato da Ian Fleming? Eppure, ognuno di questi personaggi ha avuto tanto successo da essere stato protagonista non di uno, ma di una serie di film. Nel giro di poche stagioni cinematografiche, tra il 1965 e il 1968, l’Italia produsse (o meglio co-produsse, dato che sono rarissimi i film completamente made in Italy) poco meno di duecento pellicole riconducibili al genere spionistico, sull’onda del successo dei film di 007. Una mole di prodotti che non può, per la legge dei grandi numeri, non contenere almeno una manciata di titoli meritevoli di riscoperta. Seguiteci in questo viaggio in uno dei generi meno indagati del cinema popolare italiano, e vi sorprenderete nello scoprire quanti (e quali!) agenti con licenza di uccidere sono partiti da Cinecittà alla conquista del mondo.
This book can be ordered at:
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Spot Pepper Steak Magazine N°21 avec Danger : Diabolik
You can download this magazine free at their site:
www.peppersteak.fr
Friday, February 5, 2010
Hecho en Europa, Cine de géneros Europeo, 1960-1979
Once every few years you get a book in your hands that makes you so happy that you own it but best of all that you are going to have a very good time reading it! "Hecho en Europa", cine de géneros Europeo from 1960-1970 is such a great book. Often books are written by authors who know to some degree what they are writing about but the contributing authors of this book sure know their stuff in and out regarding everything Eurocult cinema from decades past. The list of authors reads as a real "who's who" from the latin Eurocult world: Jesús Parrado, Javier G. Romero, Nino Ortea, Antonio José Navarro, Pablo Fernández, Ramón Freixas & Joan Bassa, Tomás Fernández Valentíni, Alfredo Lara López, Ángel García Romero and last but not least the always reliable Carlos Aguilar, who by the way, wrote together with his wife Anita Haas an amazing autobiography and filmography about John Phillip Law called "Diabolik Angel". This book was finished a few weeks before the untimely death of John Phillip Law. Both authors had the full cooperation of this versatile Eurocult actor and access to his private photo library.
If you are following the Eurocult sites and blogs from the different genres the names of the authors are very familiar to you so it does not come as a surprise that they tackle in this book material as experts in their fields like Eurowestern, Cine Bélico, Cine Fantástico, Cine de Aventuras, Eurothriller, Cine et Erotismo, Cine et Literatura, Cine et Cómic, Cine et Musica.
Both books can be bought by writing a mail to this adress:
They will gladly give you all the information regarding price, shipment and payment. Highly recommended.
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