Virna Lisi: death of a golden haired beauty!

Almost at the end of the year 2014, on December 18th, the Italian, world  and genre cinema has to say goodbye to one of its most prominent members the talented and beautiful actress Virna Lisi, born as Virna Lisa Pieralisi, on November 8th 1936, hence 78 years old, which in my humble opinion is much to young to die. She was often regarded as the Italian Marilyn Monroe. She started her career in 1953 and worked untill her untimely death in cinema and television, winning several national and international movie awards like at the Cannes Film Festival. Virna Lisi worked with all the great directors and actors/actresses of her time during more than 114 movie and television credits.

Fans of Marisa Mell will always remember Virna Lisi in the movie "Casanova 70" with Marcello Mastroianni and "Le Dolce Signore" with Ursulla Andress and Claudine Auger.  

It was only last month that the golden haired actress heared from her doctors that she had an uncurable disease and would not have long to live. Virna Lisi died peacefully today surrounded by her family and friends in Rome, Italy.

The Two "Marisa"s by Helmut Berger

On november 1st 2012, the German publishing company Schwarzkopf Verlag situated in Berlin published a very luxurious photobook on the life of the once European cult movie star and present day always doped enfant terrible Helmut Berger called "Helmut Berger - Ein Leben in Bildern". This book has around 500 pictures trying to give an insight into the life of Helmut Berger from early childhood with his family over his first steps into becoming a world movie star followed by his down fall untill the present day with focus mainly on the many women and sometimes men in his life! All the major actresses at the height of his career in the 60's and 70's have a place in this book like Romy Schneider, Ursula Andress, Sophia Loren... and Marisa Mell.

What is strange about this book is the fact that Marisa Mell appears only on two pictures in this massive book with so many pictures. I understand that this book is a labour of love from the editor for the object of his affection Helmut Berger and that on the most part of the photo's Helmut Berger is in a single pose! Nevertheless this does not take away that Marisa Mell and Helmut Berger had a very intense friendship and even relationship with one another during more than three decades untill her untimely death. Both heralding from Vienna, Austria made that bond very special, giving Marisa Mell a more than special place in his life! I am not even mentioning the drug, alcohol and substance abuse that was common practice between them or being at his bed side after his suicide attempt together with Romy Schneider. So it would only been fair to Marisa Mell that more never before seen pictures were published in this book than the meager two pictures! Sigh! But the brain of Helmut Berger is already so far gone by constant drug and alcohol abuse since decades that he probably hardly can remember his life with Marisa Mell and the shit that he gave her during his life time! During the presentation of the first copy of his book by the editor/publisher a picture appears in the book of Helmut Berger with an actress on the cover of  American "Vogue". Very proudly Helmut Berger tells the editor of his book that he was the first man ever gracing the cover of this fashion magazine together with Marisa... Mell. Sadly this was not true because the actress on the cover was "not" Marisa Mell but Marisa Berenson. 

Thanx to André Schneider for informing me about the existence of this book!

"Anyone Can Play" with Netflix!

One of the lost movies of Marisa Mell, never having had an official VHS or DVD release, made in 1968 with other Eurostars Ursula Andress, Virna Lisi and Claudine Auger is the movie "Le Dolci Signore" or "Anyone Can Play". This comedy has been hardly ever seen since those days except on some local television stations during the red eye broadcast hours and mostly in a cut version.
So I was very pleased to hear from Marisa Mell fan "Dan" from Chicago that the movie-on-demand "Netflix" in the USA made this movie avalaible in her catalogue for the American audience. Knowing the quality of the prints and mostly the uncut versions of a movie they use this is really a treat for all Marisa Mell fans to see this movie for the first time in more than 40 years as it should been!

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Thanks Dan from Chicage for pointing this one out!

Movie Marquees!

While in Paris (France) last week and the beginning of this week, I was walking one night along the Boulevard de Strassbourg. During this walk I was happy to see that some traditions have not (yet) died out in our present day society! What am I talking about? Well, along the Boulevard there is a nice little cosy theatre, as there are still many in Paris, but this one still had a big old style marquee on its front wall like in the old days with the name of the actress/cabaretière on it in bright big lights together with the name of the programme that she was bringing. In the last century, theatre and movie marquees were "the" way to announce a programme. Sadly, when a lot of theatres and cinemas were replaced by modern movieplexes and big concrete theatres these often beautiful crafted marquees disappeared to be replaced by dull displays.
So during my walk I wondered what it would be like to see a Marisa Mell film on a movie marquee during the end of the 60's and the beginning of the 70's when these were still around. Unfortunately, to my knowledge, there excist no pictures of these movie marquees with a Marisa Mell movie on it but thanks to the magic of the internet I created these marquees to get a sense what they might have looked like in the past!

Meet me in Paris!

Today I am leaving for Paris (France) to take a little break untill next week. So I found it quite appropriate to publish for this entry a beautiful rare behind the scene picture of Marisa Mell during her stay in Paris in 1967 in the month of February during her shoot of the movie "Le Dolci Signore" with other Eurostars Ursula Andress, Claudine Auger and Virna Lisi. The picture is dated February 23rd 1967. It is part of the Granger Collection hence the watermark on the picture!

Cheesecake!

Marisa Mell was a child of the "Flower Power" era of the 60's and early 70's when being totally nude as an established actress was still very revolutionary and mainly not done! Together with other famous actresses of that moment like Ursula Andress, Silva Koscina, Elke Sommer, Virna Lisi,... and many others she had no problem in being photographed in the nude by famous art photographers like Angelo Frontoni for magazines like Playboy, Hustler, Mayfair.... So when the promotion of her latest movie "Historia de una Traicion" from 1971 was discussed by the producers, they asked her, in the vain of the steamy love scenes in the movie, to do a nude photo shoot to draw the attention to their latest product! This was not a problem as you can see by the enclosed pictures in this entry. These pictures have not been seen in 40 years and have surfaced only recently. They show a very relaxed and playfull Marisa Mell completely at ease with her own nudity in front of the camera.

Body Double with Helmut Berger

Marisa Mell and Helmut Berger, both from Austria, knew each other several years, before they became lovers between 1976 and 1978. Before that Helmut Berger had a long term almost marriage like gay relationship with the world famous Italian director Luchino Visconte (1906-1976) which ended with the sudden death of the director. After his death Helmut Berger became desperate not knowing what to do with his professional and personal life. This was also made worst by the fact that Visconte did not made a testament during his life so Helmut Berger did not inherit anything from the Visconte estate and the Visconte family dropped him after the funeral. During this difficult period he was helped by mostly Ursula Andress, Romy Schneider and... Marisa Mell. They were his closest friends. It was during this time of intimacy that they probably became lovers. Helmut Berger had always been very open about his sexuality and his equal preferance for women and... men. The affair was very prominent in the yellow press at that time. In 1977 they both starred in the Italian action movie "La Belva col mitra", famous for the rape scene of Marisa Mell by Helmut Berger. To promote the movie the couple made an even more notorious photo shoot for Italian Playboy as lovers in the same bed room at the Moderno Hotel in Ancona where the sex scenes for the movie were filmed. This photo shoot went around the world and made headline's everywhere. The Belgian movie magazine Cine Revue picked the photos up for its July 7th 1977 cover and issue. It was one of it's biggest selling issues to that date.

(Note: I got a lot of requests for this shoot in the last months from people who wanted to see these notorious pictures. I have no problem in showing full frontal nudity because in Europe people are not prude and accept their bodies and sexuality as a natural fact. But... in regard to this blog I find it, for me, in respect to Marisa Mell, unacceptable to show her in full frontal nudity, even knowing that she was quite comfortable showing her nude body and the photo shoot was originally made in full frontal nudity by both actors with their agreement. So therefor I have covered her most intimate part with an orange butterfly.)

The Golden Girls

1968 was a very good year in the career of Marisa Mell, not only did she make the cult classic Mario Bava's "Danger: Diabolik!" , a movie called "Stuntman" but also "Le Dolci Signore" or in English "Anyone Can play". The movie was directed by Luigi Zampa and co-written by the famous Italian director Ettore Scola and his writing partner Ruggero Maccari.

In this movie Marisa Mell plays the role of "Paola" together with some of the best known female stars in European cinema at that moment: Claudine Auger, Virna Lisi and Ursula Andress.

Ursula Andress has top billing on this movie and does not really need any introduction because she was the first Bond girl as "Honey Rider" in the first James Bond movie "Dr. No". Another Bond girl is also part of this team of liberated women, Claudine Auger from France. She was Bond's inside girl "Dominique - Domino - Derval" in the movie "Thunderball". And finally Lisi Virna from Italy, famous from euuuhhhh..., maybe from the Richard Burton starrer "Bluebeard" in 1972.

The movie is build as a comedy around these four ladies with their stories involving the men in their lives played by Jean-Pierre Cassel, Frank Wolff, Mario Adorf and Lando Buzzanca. Although the movie has these four beautiful women as stars, the movie itself did not make any headlines. As a publicity vehicle it did do its job. The four sirens got tons of media attention in the latino world ranging from France, Italy, Spain to all the countries in Central and South America. Each and every magazine got them on the cover and had some kind of articles about them in their editions. For Marisa Mell the movie will be remembered for her sensual striptease. In the movie she is addicted to do stripteases and in the end her husband agrees with it and stimulates her.

Forty years later, the stars have matured into golden girls with a golden movie memory. Although the movie has some of the 60's best loved female stars, the movie was never, by my knowledge, released on DVD, officially or unofficially. Maybe the time is right to do so!

Le dolci signore - Belgian poster anyone?

Before the existence of the internet, production companies had to promote their movies with the means of that time at their disposal. In the 60's and 70's it was mainly through the printed media with posters, flyers, leaflets, pressbooks, lobby-cards... Each movie had several versions of their posters mostly painted or drawn with the most alluring scene's of the movie as a focus. In the mid '80's the production companies used more and more movie stills to compose their posters and the art of movie poster drawing disappeared in the background. Using stills was much cheaper then appointing and paying an artist to draw the posters. Who doesn't know the stunning drawings of Robert McGinnis with his posters for the James Bond movies with Sean Connery which are etched in our subconcious for ever. So having an eye catching poster was of the utmost importance and could often make or break a movie. Therefore almost always the production company told the foreign distributors what kind of movie poster they were allowed to produce in their home markets to sell the movie to the audience. Most American layouts were re-styled to fit the needs of the local foreign market. It was often the American poster with the foreign title and a re-arranging of the eye-catchers of the original American poster. Although this was true for most countries in the world there was one country that had it's own policy of promoting a movie: Belgium. Since the beginning of the movie history Belgium had a front runners role with people like Pierre Plateau and his Fenakistiscoop in 1831 which became the basis for the movie industry or a first showing of a movie by the brothers Lumière in Brussels, the capital of Belgium in 1896. Belgium was also in the centre of the Art Nouveau movement at that time with Victor Horta so when the two art forms, movies and art movement, found each other they produced some stunning examples of movie poster art. This tradition was carried over to the 60's and 70's and was never questioned by American production companies. For the Belgian market a new layout was drawn by mostly Belgian artists whom became masters in their craft. The Belgian poster is mostly in a horizontal style and has two titles, one in Flemish, the language of the majority of the Belgian people and French. Because most American production companies had their European seat in Paris (France) the translations of the (American) titles of the movies was often literally which often didn't correspond with the Flemish language and had a funny meaning to the Flemish people. A classic example is the Garry Cooper movie "High Noon" which becomes "De Trein Zal Drie Maal Fluiten" in Flemish or "The Train Will Whistle Three Times". So the Italian title "Le dolce signore" meaning "The Sweet Gentlemen" referring to the adulterous affaires of the married women in the movie becomes in English "Anyone can play", in French "Pas folles les mignonnes" and in Flemish "Niet gek de schatjes" meaning "Not crazy the cute ones". Nevertless the Belgian poster for "Le dolci signore" with Marisa Mell is one of the best Belgian posters with the stunning faces of Marisa Mell, Ursula Andress, Virna Lisi and Claudine Auger. The faces are life like drawn and have a realistic feel to it. Most of the faces and figures on other Belgian posters are drawn in a cartoon kind of way and not very realistic. Because the movie has no real action scenes, they are missing on the poster so you get only the four faces of the main actresses, their names, the director and color process and titles in the two languages and that's it. Plain and simple! Maybe to simple because the film was not a hit and got lost in the depth of oblivion!

In contrast to this poster is the poster of the French movie "Angelique" with French cult star Michèle Mercier as the heroine. In my opinion this is one of the most beautiful erotic and attractive Belgian movie posters ever made.