Taxi Love - Servizio Per Signora

Since writing this blog my private collection of rare Marisa Mell movies has grown substantially thanks to some very dedicated Marisa Mell fans in the world and making her filmography more complete with each addition. Last week I got a movie from a fan that I was looking for to have and see since ages not only for the rarety of the movie but also for the controversy surrounding this movie in regard to Marisa Mell. The film is called "Taxi Love-Servizio Per Signora" from 1976. The movie is an Italian-Spanish co-production and known in Spanish speaking countries as "Taxista de Sinoras".

Some of the Marisa Mell movies are broadcasted regularly on television like "Danger: Diabolik!" or "Una Sull'Altra" but other lesser known movies like "Taxi Love" or "La Tempesta" have almost been graduately lost in film history untill one night during the red eye hours a commercial television station in a Spanish speaking country decides to broadcast a rare Marisa Mell movie just to fill its air time! And fortunately some fans are vigilantely enough to tape or record this movie before it disappeares again in the trenches of the film abyss of lost movies. Other times during the height of the VHS tapes in the 80's some rare Marisa Mell movies have been issued on a very limited production run in some local markets. Sadly at the moment those movies have not been re-issued on DVD. What ever the source it is nice to see that this movie has surfaced again for the dedicated fan to see and appreciate !The copy that I got is the Spanish version of the movie. The quality of the movie is not very good as you can see by the screen grabs but is a little bit better when played as a movie. In the filmography of Marisa Mell movies this movie "Taxi Love" can be classified under the label "Italian Erotic Movies" which were extremely populare during mid and end 70's in Italy and the rest of the world. In the past I wrote an entry about this kind of movies under the title "Vizietto All'Italiana or the sexy Italian comedy". One of the most famous Euro-cult stars Edwige Fenech made dozens of those movies. Even Marisa Mell could not escape this trend and was forced to act in them if she wanted to stay in the movie business at all. So she made several movies like "La Liceale all Mare con l'Amica di Pappa" or "Amore, Letti et Tradimenti". This movie "Taxi Love" has all the ingredients of a sexy Italian comedy like a duo of two stupid and clumsy men, one tall and the other small, several confusing story lines with a lot of endless babble, some car chases or turmoil , one or two sexy heroines who show a lot of legs or cleavage and try to seduce the hero of the story... Personally I do not like these kind of movies because they never live up to what the lobby cards or posters promise and mostly the stories are just plain stupid and especially not funny but rather far fetched with often old or sexist jokes!
So this movie fits the mold perfectly. The central piece is of course a taxi with several stories told around this taxi and its driver. Marisa Mell plays in one storyline in the middle of the movie and disappeares after her story has been told. Nothing special and nothing earth shattering. Just a money job with only a few days of production time.So what makes this movie special then in the Marisa Mell filmography?

As far as I know there are two version of this movie in circulation. One normal version and one hard core version. The version that I got was the plain normal version without any additions of hard core (Thank God!). At the end of the success of the sexy Italian comedies when the movie market was flooded with this kind of movies the producers of these movies were looking to find new ways to sell them to the audiences. One of the means to do that was to take a movie from their movie library and insert several hard core scenes that were not originally in the production to spice up the otherwise dull story. This became a very common practice during those days and is one of the reasons why some people regard Marisa Mell at the end of her movie career as a hard core actress although she never did perform any of those scenes as mentioned. Those scenes were later shot with body doubles. Other famous examples are the movies "Emanuelle in America" with Laura Gemser by husband Joe D'Amato or "Porno Holocaust" with George Eastman. (Sigh!!!)
Another reason why this movie is quite special is the fact that thanks to its rareness not many people have seen it and some have questioned and doubted the appearence of Marisa Mell in it. Often the name of Marisa Mell was mixed up with the name of another actress in this movie going by the name Malisa Longo, although not the same as Marisa Mell, it was enough to cause some kind of confusion. But as can be seen by the screen grabs, Marisa Mell was indeed part of this movie, although not in a leading role but in a gloryfied cameo or as the title credits call her "by special appearence".

After viewing this movie I was surprised to see an old acquintance of Marisa Mell which I thought I would never see again!

In this movie from 1976 I noticed that she was wearing her white and yellow gold heart shaped pendant with diamonds that she wore for the first time in the spaghetti western from 1972 called "Amico stammi lontano almeno un palmo" as Sarah and that in the mid 80's also appeared on her neck during a sexy photo shoot for a skin magazine. A photo from that shoot was later used as an autograph card to promote her only single "Slave of Love". I wonder where that pendant is now???

"Slave of Love" re-edit mix by Space=Kudo

Almost 20 years after her death, Marisa Mell is still on the minds of a lot of Eurocult fans like from the now established once cult director Quentin Tarantino with his movie "Jackie Brown", showing a clip in this movie from "Belva Col Mitra" to the up and coming multi-talented actor-director André Schneider with his movie "Der Mann im Keller" using parts of the movie "French Dressing" in the opening credits of this movie.

Not many people know that Marisa Mell also had a very short music career (!) when her movie career was slowly coming to an end. More info about this rather strange part of her life can be found here: http://marisa-mell.blogspot.com/2008/08/lady-o-and-slave-of-love-marisa-mell-on.html

She only made one single called "Slave of Love" in reference to her femme fatale reputation in the yellow press and as you also can see on the picture above being her fan card issued by the German record company "Jupiter Records" during the release of her one and only single. During the past years this single has become quite a collector's item and is highly sought after by completists collecting everything Eurocult and its stars. Blogger Space=Kudo was also fascinated by the content of the Marisa Mell-single. Most fans of Marisa Mell who are familiar with the single know that this production was a very poor attempt to cash in on the once sexy reputation of a star in decline. So Space=Kudo thought this could be done better and made a re-edit mix of this song for his terrific blog "Space=Kudo - Disco 4 ever" where in regular intervals re-edited mixes of known and lesser known music are posted. You can visit his blog: http://space-kudu.blogspot.com/

A Butterfly Among Flies!

In the hot summer of 1971, Marisa Mell got together with fellow Eurocult stars Guiliano Gemma and George Eastman in Almeria (Spain), under the guidance of director Michele Lupo, to film the comedy western "Amico, Stammi Lontano Almeno Un Palmo" or better known under its English title "Ben and Charlie". The Italian premiere was on February 4th 1972. The story was written by George Eastman under his birth name Luigi Montefiori and his writing partner Sergio Donati. The movie tells the story of two friends (?) Ben and Charlie who are trying to get rich quickly but always stumble on unforeseen troubles loosing always the opportunity to finish the heist or try to trick each other for the stolen money in the end loosing it again. Almost the complete movie centres around those two men except for one segment where the story centers around Guiliano Gemma as Ben Bellow and Marisa Mell as Sarah.

At first glance, this little storyline in the entire movie is just a scene written for Marisa Mell to give her a chance to do her part opposite then Italian super star Guiliano Gemma. Nothing more than a glorified cameo in anotherwise rather chaotic movie! But after seeing that scene several times the attentive viewer starts to notice that this part of the movie is rather a little movie in the movie superbly played by Gemma and Mell. Marisa Mell as Sarah enters the story in a stage coach on her way to San Diego. She has to wait in the outpost to catch another stage coach with fresh horses. During her wait under a merciless sun, she is noticed by Ben, who recognizes her from his past. At first the couple flirts a little as though they are strangers for each other untill the bom is dropped by Sarah. Ben Bellow is a former lover of her who has left her standing in front of the altar almost three years ago. Sarah confronts him with this fact and mentions that he fears to commit himself in a relationship and is not able to say the words "I love you" to the person he loves! Ben tries to mend the still hurt Sarah by telling her that she has done well in life without him when he sees her expensive appearance. When asking what she now does to earn money she coldly tells him that she still is a hooker as when they first met. It hurts Ben to hear this. During the next conversation the couple starts to come together again but before anything can happen the stage coach for San Diego arrives and Sarah has to be on it. By now, Sarah has forgiven Ben for his mistakes and she looks at him with other eyes. She even wants him to have some money she has saved for her stay in San Diego. Ben refuses the money and asks her to wait a few months so that he can fetch her in San Diego when he has struck gold. The stage coach gathers speed and disappears with a stunned Ben on the horizon knowing that he probably has lost the love of his life. This part of the movie is one of my all time favorite scenes with Marisa Mell because everything comes together in this scene. Let me explain. First the couple meet at a cross road for stage coaches with different directions to take them to other parts of the country. This cross road stands for the cross road of their lives. They were to get married three years ago but Ben got scared and left Sarah at the altar. Now he has the opportunity again to fix his mistake. She has the opportunity to forgive him for that mistake. When they can surpass themselves they can be together again because it is clear that they are still in love with each other. Sarah is able to forgive him for his mistake symbolized by the money she is willing to offer him so that he can have for a short time a decent life. In other words, Sarah values Ben again which is represented by the money she is willing to give him. Ben on the other hand is still fighting with himself. He has to choose between a stable life with Sarah on one side and a life as a gold digger and gambler on the other side. What will he choose? Sadly he comes to late to the conclusion that he wants to stay with Sarah, destiny in form of a stage coach decides for him. He has lost her again and Sarah leaves the cross road of his life again, probably for ever lost to him. This is a very well written scene by Luigi Montefiori and Sergio Donati. Not only that but the execution of that scene by the director Michele Lupo is also first class. He uses a lot of close ups so that the viewer can see first hand the reactions of both protagonists. The hurt, desire, longing and finally the disappointment that they have failed again and that life will take them again into another seperate direction. Lupo also uses a lot of shots and counter shots to point out the difference between both. The original soundtrack by Gianni Ferrio, and especially Sarah's Theme with it's sentimental overtone completes the whole scene. Once you have heard that theme you'll never forget it!

And then there is the appearance of both characters to show the audience that both people are complete opposites of each other on every level. And that is a long list. Here we go: Ben is male, Sarah is female. Ben has short blond hair, Sarah has long dark brown hair. Ben has a red shirt, Sarah has a green dress. Ben's shirt has holes in it, just like his life of failures while Sarah's dress is as new as just bought in a store. Ben has a short red ribbon around his straw head, Sarah has a long green ribbon around her head, even more Ben's head is more the straw head for a girl while Sarah's head is almost a bowler head for a man indicating that she is decisive in live while Ben is undecisive like a young girl who does not know what to do with her live. Ben has a leather ribbon around his neck, Sarah has a silver necklace with heart shape pendant covered with diamonds in two color gold, white and yellow. This necklace indicates that Sarah has a torn heart and is a torn women. And so to my belief, Ben and Sarah could never have come together. They were just to different to connect. Sarah says it best during this scene: I am a butterfly among flies. And that makes this scene one of my favorite Marisa Mell clips!

But the story doesn't end there. The heart shaped diamond pendant around Marisa Mell's neck is a rather strange object. The question remains if this necklace belonged to Marisa Mell from her private collection (maybe given to her by a lover???) or that she fell in love with the necklace after the production of the movie and took it home. I believe that the necklace was from her private collection and that she wore it during the shooting of the movie. Fact is that almost ten years later the heart shaped diamond pendant resurfaced again around her neck in public. As many of you know from a former entry, Marisa Mell has made a single called "Slave of Love", produced by Ralph Siegel. To promote this single she made an autograph card with a picture from a sexy photo shoot for a skin magazine. And around her neck the pendant appeared again. This time giving a completely different message from an older sexual mature women seeing herself as a "Slave of Love". Unfortunately for Marisa Mell, this carreer was very short lived. And so the heart shaped diamond pendant disappeared never to be seen again.

Lady O and Slave of Love (Marisa Mell on Record)

In 1979 the career of Marisa Mell was slowly coming to an end! Her latest succesful movie was "La belva col mitra" in 1977 with lover of that moment Helmut Berger. After this movie the offers were dwindling and she had to accept lesser and lesser movie offers to keep the cash flowing. In most of these movies she played a supporting role. Another way to keep the money coming in and being able to pay for a living was to accept several offers to pose in the nude in second class nude magazine's like "High Society" and other likewise. She hated it to do this but saw no other way to earn a living. Around the same time a german record producer with the name of Ralph Siegel got notice of the bad financial situation of Marisa Mell. Never to let an opportunity go by he offered her a record deal in the hope to cash in on her still well known name in Europe. It was a long shot but worth the risk he tought and maybe she could start a record career. Ralph Siegel was and still is a musician, composer and producer through his record label "Jupiter Records" based in Munich (Germany). The label is a real stable with dozen's of artists under contract. Siegel is best known as the man behind the only German Eurovision Song Contest winning in 1982 by German female singer "Nicole" and her peace song "Ein bisschen Frieden" or "A Little Peace". The song became a huge hit in Europe due to the cold war protest in the Regean era. The song made Ralph Siegel a very wealthy man. Later Ralph Siegel was put into the spotlight in France, Belgium and Luxembourg in face of a contract scandal he made for the two artists "Sophie and Magaly" with their song "Papa Pingouin". It was revealed that Siegel gave only 5000 Euros to each of the sisters, although more than one million records were sold. Ralph Siegel came up with the only 7" single Marisa Mell ever made with the title: "Lady O" as A-side and "Slave of Love" as B-side. The title of the songs are referring to a SM-relationship that Marisa Mell has with her lover for which she would do anything to get his love. The track has the actress begging, in a sexy husky speaking voice due to heavy smoking for many years, to be held down with heavy chains, beaten with sticks, and generally treated like "...your animal in a cage". The story refers to another well known SM-story "Histoire d'O" which was a big cinema hit in that period. The rhythm has an stop-and-go structure and the backing is minimal with just a drumbeat and some burbling synths, plus a chorus. The picture sleeve has Marisa on a motorcycle, wearing a red-black riding jacket. The record was one big farce and was horrible to listen to. It was a bomb and did not sell at all. Afterwards looking back one can only guess that Marisa Mell was very much in dispair to agree to such a monstrocity. Unfortunately she had to do almost anything to earn a living. Fact is that she had high hopes but was very disappointed when the single flopped in the charts and Ralph Siegel dropped her contract. It was the start of the definitive end of her career and the way down would be long and very painful untill the very end of her life!

Through the years the single has become a collector's item for fans of Euro-cult and it's actresses because of it's rarity and oddity. So finding it in good condition is not easy but occassionally the single is on offer on Ebay at a reasonable price.