Body language

This photo is a behind the scenes shot of Marisa Mell as "Gloria Hall" with fellow cast member Jean-Claude Bercq as "Omero" on the set of the 1968 film "Le Cascadeur" or in English "Stuntman", where a women tries to lure a stuntman into stealing an Indian artifact. This is a great shot of Marisa Mell. There are not that many behind the scene photo's of her where she is totally relaxed and laughing, even showing her teeth. Although Marisa Mell had beautiful teeth she was not in the habit of showing them a lot on film or photo. So most of her photo's are staged without laughing. But that is not all. This photo is also great because it tells us a story simply by looking at the body language of the two actors. Both actors made only one film together so they probably didn't know each other before filming started. We are several weeks into production so they had time to get to know each other well because they are standing very close to each other in an intimate way. Marisa Mell's hair is even touching the nose of Jean Claude Bercq. He has told her something funny what made her laugh spontaneously. Although a funny story to make her laugh, her body language is telling us a complete different story. First she is not looking at her partner but is looking down. That is always a dead give away that the listener is not 100% sure of the honesty of her partner and the truth of the story being told. But that is not all to strengthen her suspicion Maria Mell is rubbing her nose. That is also a sign that she has her suspicions about the whole setting. I wonder what he could have told her???

Graz, Trondheimgasse 12

Marisa Mell was born on February 24th, 1939 in Graz, Province of Styria, Austria. She lived with her family for a certain time in a street called "Trondheimgasse" at n° 12. At the age of 18, after graduation, she went to Vienna to study theatre and drama at the Max Reinhardt Seminar. Graz became in 2003 "Cultural Capital of Europe" for that year and the women of the "WOMENT" organisation in that city decided to honor some women from Graz who had some kind of historical importancy for Graz and her history. In honor of these women, the organisation decided to dedicate 23 plates to these women in a project called "20+03". On march 8th 2003, on International Women's Day, these plates were revealed and during April 2003 they were put on the walls at their distinctive places. Each plate of the 23 plates has a different look and color scheme but they all share the same concept so that they have a common feeling and look about them. The graphic design is by an artist called Sabine Hörtner, selected after a competition to create the best design for this project. The texts are by writer Eva Rossmann. The text on the plate for Marisa Mell goes as follows:

"Zur Würdigung von Marisa Mell (1939-1992)-Schauspielerin - Schön war sie und sie hatte Talent. Sie genoss ihre Berühmtheit und Männer lagen ihr zu Füssen. Ein Traumleben voller Glamour - die Liebe kam zu kurz. Der Film riss, als sie nicht mehr makellos sein konnte. Trondheimgasse 12-Ehrmaliger Wohnort"

(In honor of Marisa Mell (1939-1992)-Actress - She was beautiful and had talent. Sie enjoyed her fame and men were at her feet. A dream life full of glamour - only love fell short. The movie broke when she could not be perfect any more. Trondheimgasse 12-former residency)

... and the photo novella from Lancio!

In this magazine clip from the mid '60's Marisa Mell is reading a magazine called "Sogno" meaning "dream" in Engish. The title of the article is called "Il fotoromanzo e' uno svago sano e legittimo" meaning "the photo novella is a healty and legitimate way of relaxation", which I find a rather strange title for an article. But on second thought it is not! Why? Like almost all pop culture items like comics, pulp novels, televison series, soap opera's... what the general audience likes to relax with after a long day of work, another part of the population had for a very long time a very low estime for. Very often some kind of professor or scholar was behind a certain train of thoughts. The most famous case is probably in America professor Fredric Wertham in 1954 and his attack against the horror comics from publisher EC Comics which in his opinion was "A Secuction of the Innocent". Although more than decade later reading a fotoromanzo in Italy was probably not a naturally thing for a women to do in public who liked to dream away with her romantic heroes and heroines. So this explaines why Marisa Mell is reading this magazine "Sogno" from publisher Lancio and the article is declaring that nothing is wrong when you like to read those kind of stories. Italy had in the mid 60's a very strong pop culture output with fumetti's like Diabolik, Tex, Akim... for the general male audience and Lucifera, Jacula, Bianca Neve... for the porn-horror male fan.

Women on the other hand had their romantic novels and instead of fumetti, being drawn comics, they had their photo novella's with romantic themes. The first photo novella was published in Italy on May 8th 1947 and was called "Il mio sogno" or "My dream". The first issue was an adaption of a novel and due to the success of the photo novella it became quickly a weekly series with in the beginning also adaptations of succesfull movies like "Sissi" with Romy Schneider and later specially written scenario's. The big boom in the photo novella genre came in the sixties with the rise of publisher "Lancio".

Lancio was founded in 1936 in Rome as a publicity company but it's fame started in 1960 when they decided to also publish photo novella's. What was new about them was that they told their stories in a dynamic way, that they used very beautiful men and women as actors and actresses and that the themes of their stories were very modern and nothing was sacred to them. The success was huge and there was no stopping them. Due to the success of their publications with names like Charme, Marina, Letizia... they even went to Paris or New York to shoot their stories and did not stayed in Rome all the time.

At the hight of the photo novella in 1976 all the publishers in Italy sold more than 8 million copies a month and Lancio sold more than 5 million of that number. Another aspect of the succes of the photo novella was the fact that they were the breeding ground for new actors and actresses, often on the brink of breaking in in the movie or television business. A lot of famous actors and actresses today started in the photo novella in Italy like Sophia Loren and Gina Lollobrigida and later Ornella Mutti and even genre stars like Franco Gasparri (Mark Il poliziotto), Laura Antonelli, Luc Merenda, Kirk Morris, Ivan Rassimov... and many others made their first steps in showbizz on the stage of the photo novella.

Today the photo novella is still alive in Italy and around the world, especially in the Latino countries. There are now only a few publishers and they are struggling to keep their print run to a profitable level. Thanks to their loyal followers, especially women, the publications are still a steady seller but not anymore the hugh numbers from the 70's. What still is a fact is that they are a stepping stone to a movie and television career. And even the opposite is happening: due to the big succes of reality shows some of their participants like Gilles Rocca were able to cross over into the photo novella and will ultimately thanks to his acting talent and charisma make it to movies and television and so the circle closes for him.

Other photo novella actors and actresses will stay as long as they are wanted by the publishers in the phantasy realm of the photo novella like Francesca R. Filone with occasionally trips to other mass media but she will always come back to her first job! Others will leave forever and start a job outside the mass media.

To close, Marisa Mell by my knowledge, never acted in a photo novella. She knew probably a lot of beginning photo novella stars because they were all living in Rome and some of them worked with her in her movies like Marina Giordana in "La belva col mitra". What did happen is that some of her movies like "Danger: Diabolik!" were made into a photo novella but that is another story.

Diabolik-Cronistoria di un Film (Diabolik Club)

Today I got my copy of the premium book for 2008 from the Italian based "Diabolik Club" called "Diabolik-Cronistoria di un Film" written by Roberto Altariva. It has a print run of 700 copies. The book is in black and white with a color cover. It has 176 pages and comes with your annual subscription of the club. The book is completely in Italian, sorry no English. You can also have a subscription without the book what makes the annual fee a little cheaper.

After viewing the content of the book I was pleasantly surprised. A lot of people have written about Mario Bava's film "Danger: Diabolik" so it would be hard to write about this movie from another new angle than the usual ones. Therefore the books focusses completely on the publicity side of the 1968 movie. It has I believe almost all the articles that have appeared in the Italian press running up to making the movie, during its production and its press junket afterwards.

But that is not all. There are a lot of bonusses that makes every "Danger: Diabolik!"-fan's heart go faster: all the Italian and international promotional material starting with the Italian locadina, Belgian posters, international posters, all the Italian and international lobby cards, press books, all the movie versions, all the soundtrack versions... and finally a list of bloopers in the movie that you problably didn't know existed. What is also great about the book is the number of photo's that have not been seen during almost 40 years unless you are in the possession of the original articles from the Italian magazines or newspaper clippings. But that is not all, you even get the complete fotoromanzo of the movie and finally an interview from 2001 with John Phillip Law. If you are fan of the movie and would not like to cash out a lot of money for all the clippings and magazine articles regarding the movie "Danger: Diabolik!" then this book is a very cheap alternative! Highly recommended!

Stunning photo of Marisa Mell (5)

During the career of Marisa Mell, she had dozens of great pictures taken but the photo of this entry has to be one the most beautiful pictures ever taken of her. This is why it graced the cover of the German book "Marisa: Rückblenden auf eine Freundschaft" written by her college friend Erika Pluhar. You can easily see why she was one the most beautiful women in the world and was even courted by the Shah of Iran, Mohammed Resa Pahlavi!