Walter Giller dies at age 84!

On December 15th 2011, one of Germany's most beloved actors "Walter Giller" died at age 84 due to lung cancer related complications. Walter Giller is regarded as one of the post WOII titans in German cinema and television with more than 137 credits in this field to his name next to his other works in theatre, on radio and other media platforms. More than 55 years he was married to another German grande dame in movie and television making the actress "Nadia Tiller". Walter Giller died surrounded by his close family in a retirement home. Fans of Marisa Mell will remember him as "Woody Johnson" in the 1964 movie "Der Letzte Ritt nach Santa Cruz" where he portrayed a rather cowardly man who had to face the bandits on the run. On this very rare behind the scene picture from 1963 we see from left to right: Thomas Fritsch, Marisa Mell, Walter Giller, Marianne Koch and Mario Adorf! Marianne Koch would one year later become "Marisol" in Sergio Leone's über cult classic "A Fistfull of Dollars" with Clint Eastwood. Mario Adorf  would meet Marisa Mell again four years later in the Italian comedy "Le Dolci Signori" with Ursula Andress. Although this picture is a happy behind the scene setting it is a rather revealing picture when you look at the body language of the actors. First you see three groups of people: on the left you have Thomas Fritsch standing alone, then you have Marisa Mell and Walter Giller close together standing higher than the other actors and finally the third group of Marianne Koch and Mario Adorf. When you look deeper into the picture you can see clearly that Marisa Mell and Walter Giller are lovers at the moment of the production of this movie! Although he was married to Nadia Tiller at the time he clearly is in love with her and most of all she is also with him. The love affair is being kept secret to the public at large but the insiders know it very well and the body language reveals it! How??? First they are standing together as a couple a little higher? Secondly they are standing very close to each other, Walter Giller is touching with his right arm the left breast of Marisa Mell which is a very intimate gesture that she would not have accepted if it were otherwise. Compare that posture with the other couple on the picture Marianne Koch and Mario Adorf who are also standing very close but keep each to themselves as they are not lovers but good friends. Marianne Koch has even the tumbs of her hands in the pocktes of her trousers which means that she protects her personality like when people make a fist around their thumbs with their fingers. Another giveaway that Marisa Mell and Walter Giller are lovers is the fact that they deliberately touch each other with their legs in an intimate way. Walter bends his right leg to touch the wall, but Marisa Mell crosses her right leg over her left leg being able to touch Walter's which is not an innocent gesture! And finally the ultimate gesture of Marisa Mell in connecting with her man is that her hips or the centre of her womenhood is connecting with the hips of Walter Giller meaning that she is completely infatuated with this man. Compare this gesture with the other couple where you can clearly see a gap between Marianne Koch and Mario Adorf. The fact that they are not looking at each other is just a little diversion to distract their secret relation. So it is clear that at picture can say more than a thousand words!
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Thanks to André Schneider for signaling the sad news of Walter Giller's death!

Sir! Please be kind to my movies!

It is always nice to hear from other Marisa fans in the world. It is even better to read their opinions about the movies that she made during her most active years in Eurocult cinema during the 60's and 70's. Jim West is one of those fans who has undertaken the task to write several critical reviews about the Marisa Mell movies that he has seen in recent past and will see in future months. Jim West is not a beginner in this field and has a great and very interesting site called "Common Sense Movie Review" (www.commensensemoviereview.com) where he has published dozens of interesting movie reviews ranging from James Bond, Hammer Movies, Twilight Zone to actor and actresses like Russell Crowe and another Eurocult star Barbara Bouchet! I wonder what movies that he will review next on his "Marisa Mell Marathon"?

"Hallo! Hier spricht Edgar Wallace!" auf Arte

A few months ago during the month of September 2011 the Franco-German cultural network "Arte" had an Edgar Wallace "Krimi" night. During that night they showed two on Edgar Wallace crime novels inspired movies together with a special about the Edgar Wallace craze during the 60's and early 7o's. What is so special about this programme is the fact that stars from that series like "Joachim Fuchsberger", best known for the giallo "What have you done to Solange?", "Karin Dor", best known as bond girl in "You'll only live twice", "Karin Baal" also known for "What have you done to Solange?" and German music composer "Peter Thomas" have been interviewed together with Italian director Umberto Lenzi, known for so many cult movies but in this entry for the giallo "Sette orchidee macchiate di rosso" for their contribution to this German cult movie series. In this programme all the characteristics of an Edgar Wallace movie are analyzed and commented by the people that played an important part at that time in their success worldwide like the famous driller killer sequence with Marisa M

ell as victim from the movie "Sette orchidee macchiate di rosso" which a few years later would be copied for the movie "Driller Killer" by Abel Ferrara.

8mm

Living in the present day has a lot of advantages that people only a few decades ago had not! Can you imagine living in a world that has no computers, no internet, no HD- or 3D-television, no DVD's, no cell phones,.... hardly I guess! Everybody is so used to this that it would be very hard to go back to that time! Living in present day times is for genre fans like living in genre heaven! Everything what makes a genre fan's heart skip a beat is today available only a klick away! Instant gratification!

At the end of the 60's and in 70's it was another story. If you where a genre fan there were not that many venues to cater your hobby. You went to the movies, bought movie magazines, went to conventions if you were lucky enough to live close enough to city that held these conventions or bought the records with the original soundtracks of all the movies that you loved so much. Through the music you could recreate the movie in your mind. And that was probably it! So die hard fans were looking for a means to see a movie again and again when recreating in their minds was not enough anymore! Enter 8mm movies!

Developed by Kodak Eastman during the early 1930's in America, 8mm became the home movie standard format for the home movies market. In the decades after the launch of the 8mm format it was mainly used to film home activities like weddings, birthday's, parties.... or the killing of J.F. Kennedy in Dallas, filmed by a man named "Zapruder" with his 8mm camera. During the 70's the demand by genre fans to have a copy of a favorite movie grew more and more. The idea that people would never see a movie again when they had seen it was replaced by the wish to be able to build a movie library of favorite movies. So in those pre-video days the 8mm movies appeared on the market for fans that could be projected at home on a screen or white wall with the same projector that was used to project the home made movies.

All the genres that are today still popular were also popular in those days but the number of movies offered where very limited to the blockbusters of those days! Another problem was that you could not buy these movies very easily. It was often a real adventure to get them. You could order them through the mail on the basis of ads in trade papers or movie magazines or you needed to travel to the nearest town to buy them at the local photographer's store or in a shopping mall. And then it was not guaranteed that you could buy all the parts of a movie to have a complete set. For a genre fan it was a lot of hassle to have a certain movie! Another disadvantage was the fact that those movies were limited in footage to around 20 or 30 minutes for each part so you had a heavily cut movie. In the end the 8mm movies became not very popular and stayed in a niche of movie fandom and almost completely disappeard with the rise of the video format at the end of the 70's and the beginning of the 80's.

For Marisa Mell fans there are almost no 8mm movies in existence. The illustration with this entry comes from a 8mm Spanish copy of the Umberto Lenzi movie "Milano Rovente". I know of an 8mm copy of the German movie "Der Brave Soldat Schwejk" and that is it! Fortunately it became much better with the video craze and nowadays with DVD's and the internet you can have almost a complete series of Marisa Mell movies at your disposal!