Annette Who???

After having filmed several movies in German speaking countries of Europe like Germany and Austria, Marisa Mell was ready to spread her wings in the movie business. She longed to film abroad. In 1964 her wish was granted when she got a phone call from England with the request to appear in the first feature film of then TV-director Ken Russell called "French Dressing". Marisa Mell got the leading female part of Françoise Fayol. The movie is a slight comedy about a stodgy British resort. Gormleigh-by-the-Sea is a holiday community besotted with dullness. To liven up, Jim, a young deck-chair attendant, convinces the local entertainment director and mayor into starting a film festival. The town convinces an ambitious French actress Françoise Fayol to be the star of the festival. What happens after that is a series of near disasters, including the failure of a Nudist Beach and a riot at a film premiere. It is left to Jim's American journalist girlfriend to save the situation and the reputation of the town.

It is not known if Marisa Mell was aware of the fact that, unfortunately, she was not the first choice by director Ken Russell to cast her as the French actress visiting the sea side resort. Nope, his first choice was actress Annette Vadim, ex-wife of French director Roger Vadim. Roger Vadim was known during the 60's as the man who made French actress and then wife Brigitte Bardot, a mega-star in Europe, when he filmed her in his cult movie "Et Dieu...créa la femme" (1956). After his relationship with Brigitte Bardot, Roger Vadim hoped to strike gold again by starting a relationship with a little known actress called "Annette Susanne Strøyberg" from Denmark.

The beautiful Strøyberg was born on the island of Fyn, in Denmark, on December 12th, 1934. Her father was a physician who died when she was quite young. She and her sister then moved to Copenhagen where she was raised. She found her way to Paris (France) in her late teens where she worked at couture houses as a model, later finding employment with such fashion notables as Chanel.Annette hooked up with Vadim during the filming of his legendary first feature "Et Dieu...créa la femme". Possessing Bardot's similar erotic balance of melancholy and fragility within her Lolita-like stunning looks, Vadim was immediately attracted to her, when Brigitte Bardot started up a heated affair with young co-star Jean-Louis Trintignant. Vadim moved in with Annette, who subsequently gave birth to their daughter Nadine in 1957. The couple married in June '58. Vadim then proceeded to build and groom a replica of Brigitte Bardot with Stroyberg. Her biggest chance for fame was when he put her on display in the film of the classic novel "Les liaisons dangereuses" (1959) as Marianne de Tourvel, the virtuous victim of the evil Jeanne Moreau and Gérard Philipe. Making her debut, Annette was stunning, of course but found herself quite outclassed by her cast, hardly ready for such a demanding role. And then came the role which gave her a cult status among Eurocult fans and vampire movie lovers.

She earned far more recognition when Roger Vadim cast her in his next movie as a society girl-cum-lesbian vampire Carmilla von Karnstein, falling in love with Elsa Martinelli, in "Et mourir de plaisir" (1960). The same Elsa Martinelli who seduces Marisa Mell in the Lucio Fulci movie "Una Sull'Altra".

By the time of the film's release, however, her marriage to Vadim was history. He had moved on to try and conquer up-and-coming actress Catherine Deneuve. Annette subsequently packed her bags for Italy where she made a few unmemorable pictures, reverting to her maiden name of Strøyberg on marquee boards. In between she managed to amass a number of love affairs with such available playboy actors like Vittorio Grassman, Roberto Rossellini, Alain Delon, Omar Sharif and Warren Beatty. Her last film was "Lo scippo" (1965). Giving up on her career, she turned socialite and married a French Moroccan, dividing her time between Paris (France) and Africa. When that marriage failed, she married a Greek shipping magnate, Gregory Callimanopulos, and settled for a time in America. She returned to Europe after their divorce. Strøyberg died at age 71 of cancer in 2005, and was survived by her three children, one from each of her marriages.

As often written on this blog, Marisa Mell refused to color her dark brown hair into another color so the only solution was to wear a wig like she did in this movie "French Dressing". When you compare the style of the hair of both women you can clearly see that Marisa Mell's wig is copying the hair style of Annette Vadim for her role as Carmilla von Karnstein. So one can assume that Ken Russell was a huge fan of the actress Annette Vadim and her role in that movie from 1960 and had her in mind to play the part in his first movie for the French actress Françoise Fayol. When Annette Vadim fell ill during the pre-production of this movie, he must have been very disappointed and started to look for another European actress to play the role! So it is quite remarkable that he asked Marisa Mell to accept the part because she had only played in a few German speaking movies.

It is not known how Ken Russell got to know the work of Marisa Mell and I wonder if Marisa Mell was aware that she was a copy (and I must say a very bad one with the horrible blond wig) in this movie of another actress. And being a copy of Annette Vadim could explain why she had to wear that wig instead of her beautiful thick brown hair for the role. French Dressing was a big box office disaster and gave the director for several years a trauma. It also ended the British career of Marisa Mell. The next year she relocated to Italy and starred in the cult movie "Casanova 70".

Marta or ...dopo di che, uccide il maschio e lo divora (1971) - Avco Embassy Television Pressbook

In 1971 Marisa Mell was at the height of her career! That year she played in two Spanish movies, filmed back to back, which was rather exceptional for that time, with Stephen Boyd as her co-star. One was "Historia de una traición" or internationally known as "the Great Swindle" the other was "...dopo di che, uccide il maschio e lo divora" and internationally known as "Marta". The story of a sister's tortured attempt to discover what happened to her twin. During this expierence, she is suspected of murder herself; falls in love with her sister's husband, only to discover he is impotent and insane. The final discovery of her murdered twin, in the house, climaxes a horror tale of twisted minds and souls. This period in the life of Marisa Mell was special because she fell madly in love with actor Stephen Boyd during the production of the first movie "the Great Swindle". Due to a sometimes special atmosphere on set with often intimate scenes, actors often fall in love during a production. Unfortunately they mostly end it when a production is wrapped and everyone drifts to other productions and projects. So Marisa Mell was no exception to this rule of dating on a film set. She had often a affaire with a co-star. Her affair during the production of "Danger: Diabolik!" with John Phillip Law is one of the best known examples. This time the romance was not just a fling. Later she would devote a whole chapter in her autobiography "Coverlove" to her time together with Stephen Boyd. In this chapter she tells us that by the end of the second production "Marta" Stephen Boyd asked her to marry him. Apperently she accepted. It was not a traditional marriage in a church but a gypsy wedding. Marisa Mell describes how they cut their wrists, shared their blood and how romantic the little time was that she spent with him. Although the affair was doomed from the beginning she tells the readers that she never quite got over the affair and makes special note of his death in 1977. In 1972 the affair came to an end and she never saw him again. A special trivia is the fact that one time after the death of Stephen Boyd, Marisa Mell believed that he still spoke to her from beyond and that theirs was a very special kind of love, no matter how short-lived. Here are some photos from the 1974 pressbook released by Avco Embassy Television issued to all the networks and television stations in America who were showing this film on TV.


Next to pictures from the movie, a pressbook had often ads, texts and templates to promote a film in local newspapers and/or magazines with the name of the cinema at the bottom of the ad. Here are two examples for this movie together with the templates for the printers to use.

Una sull'altra - Nackt über Leichen - German Lobby Cards

People who love European cult movies from the 60's and 70's, like I do, are always on the look out for the most complete version of their beloved movies!It is in the blood and can be an obsession! It has to be the total uncut version of the film with all the scenes complete down to the last second. That being said it often happens that it is not always possible to get the complete version of a movie, whatever you might wish. Bummer! A lot of it has to do with the way the movie was presented to the audience in the first place. Una sull'altra in Italy or Nackt über Leichen in Germany or Perversion Story in the USA had three production companies situated in Italy, Spain and France. So each producer tailored this movie in accordance to the legal rules of their country or to the wishes of their film board. The end result is that you get different versions of the same movie in different territories and later on different versions on different dvd labels, all pretending to have the definitive ultimate version of the movie. For example the American version was longer, but censored in several places, while some European versions had much expository footage removed while retaining sexual material cut from the U.S. release. A fully uncut version of "Una sull'altra" runs in the neighborhood of 103 minutes. Another good example is the above poster. The left hand poster is the original poster that came out during the original distribution of the movie. It is a gorgeous poster, drawn by a master painter who can draw beautiful life like faces! An art and job that is lost these days! The right hand poster is a present day manipulation of the same poster to make a cover for the DVD-R release of the movie. Problem is that they are calling their movie the uncut version ("Ungeschnittene Fassung") but untill you see the movie you are not sure what you bought! It is still a risk! And please, do not trust the running time on the back of the cover!

No chemicals on my hair!

In 1963 Marisa Mell had already 10 roles on her C.V. in Germany and her native Austria. It was now time to start an international carreer. She landed the part of Françoise Fayol in Ken Russel's 1964 movie "French Dressing", a British production about a deck-chair attendant at a British fictional resort promoting a film festival featuring a French blond sexpot. Not an important part but it was an international production in the UK. So the German teenage magazine "Bravo" put her on the cover of their August 06, 1963 issue (nr. 32). In a little article in the back of the magazine Bravo told their readers that Marisa Mell was now shooting a movie in England and was refusing to dye her hair blond as the producers asked. Marisa's argument was that she didn't want to damage her beautiful thick brown hair with chemicals. A blond wig was the only solution. As seen on the cover of the June, 1964 issue of "ABC Film Review" it was a horrible looking thing that ruined her personality as an actress and her credibility as character in the movie. The film was a disaster! Wearing a blond wig during her carreer would not be restricted to French Dressing alone. A few years later in 1967 under the direction of Mario Bava, Marisa Mell would replace the real blond French actress Catherine Deneuve as Eva Kant in the movie Danger: Diabolik!. In the Italian fumetti Diabolik, the partner of the master criminal, Lady Eva Kant was a beautiful blond women of aristocracy! So the actress had also to be blond in the movie but again Marisa did not give in to become blond. "No chemicals on my hair!" For the second time a wig had to turn a dark haired Marisa into a blond haired Eva Kant. This time the wig was of much better quality and had a much more natural look and feeling. At the end of the shooting Marisa got so fond of the wig that she took it home as a souvenir. Strangely enough it would not be the end of the now famous wig. Two years later the wig appeared again in the 1967 Italian film "Una sull'altra" by director Lucio Fulci. In this giallo Marisa played a double role and her character had to have blond hair to make a distinction for her other character. At the end of the movie, the wig had even a crucial role in the plot with a twist ending.

Danger: Diabolik - Trailer (Mario BAVA)



Una sull'altra - Marisa Mell Striptease (Lucio FULCI)