QT interview - Italian trash films

[Jeff Dove]

The following interview with Quentin Tarantino was ripped off from The Giallo
Pages #3, a zine devoted to Italian exploiation films, and printed in England,
where the interview took place. Asking the questions is Giallo Pages editor
John Martin. Buy this excellent zine for 2.50 pounds from: On Line
Publishing, P.O. Box 134, West PDO, Nottingham, NG7 7BW, England, ($7.00 US).

With all of the talk about QT's influences, the following should shed some
more light on the subject.

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GP: So what did Keitel tell you about working with Argento on TWO EVIL EYES?

QT: He was in TWO EVIL EYES, and he did another Italian movie, THE INQUIRY,
by Damiano Damiani...

GP: He did that other thing too, ORDER OF DEATH by Roberto Faenza...the one
with Johnny Rotten in it.

QT: Oh yeah...I never talked with him about the Johnny Rotten movie, but he
really liked Dario. He said that they might do another movie together
some time down the line, because he says Dario said to him, "Harvey, I've
never really learned so much about acting as I have from working with
you."

GP: Keitel was great in that film, as usual, but I wasn't too crazy about the
Argento half in general...

QT: What...you mean you liked Romero's bit but not Argentos?!?

GP: Well, I'm not a great Romero fan, so I went in there with no great
expectations of his half, which turned out to be...not bad, but I expect
so much from Argento, and he just didn't give it to me. It was like he
was sacrificing a lot of things in an attempt to get into the American
mainstream or something.

QT: That's true, but I still enjoyed his bit. I actually think it's the only
movie he's done since SUSPIRIA that was good from beginning to end - it
works consistently, all the way through.

GP: Yeah, but for me it's working on a lower level than usual - some of his
other movies have there peaks and troughs, but the peaks are so much
higher than anything in TWO EVIL EYES.

QT: Yeah, I know, the thing is that...TWO EVIL EYES has a lot of good stuff in
it. I mean, is there anything as good as the needles being taped to the
girl's eyes in OPERA? No! But is was just so nice to see a Dario Argento
piece of work that didn't make any apologies...it was really cool, y'know,
just like really compact and I loved it, thought it was terrific.

GP: It did have Keitel, who's a cut above the level of actors Argento usually
gets to work with.

QT: Yeah, Harvey was great in it, he was really funny and the movie's wild,
it's not like some kind of weak sister movie...got really wild shit in it,
and I loved all the camera movements. Yeah, I thought that movie really
kicked ass, I was really happy with it, though a lot of people do badmouth
it. Harvey loved working with Dario, said he was really a sweet man. Tim
Roth, who was also in my movie, almost got the Jimmy Russo part in TRAUMA.
He had to back out at the last minute, but he's a big Dario fan, and I've
been a big fan of Italian films for a long, long time, following them ever
since I was a teenager, y'know.

GP: Do they get well distributed in the States?

QT: Well, they used to be well distributed back in the '60s, but they showed
up big time in the video explosion in the early '80s. It's stopping now,
because there's no market for dubbed films in America...when they come out,
they're really just thrown out there, y'know, they could care less. But
for a while there, video stores were buying everything, and that was when
all this stuff got released...Ciro H. Santiago movies and everything,
there were a zillion of those, Anthony Dawson (Antonio Margheriti) and
Enzo G. Castellari films all over the place. Of course back in the '70s
was the last hurrah of these things playing the theatres.

GP: ...after which they started closing all the grindhouses down...

QT: Right. I got into it, of course, through Mario Bava...

GP: That guy is so underrated...

QT: Well, Martin Scorcese's been championing Bava for years. After Bava I got
into spaghetti westerns, guys like Sergio Sollima...I think it's
fantastic that the Aktiv guys are getting this spaghetti western
collection out over here in England. They don't have anything like that
in America - I mean, I'm desperate to see the spaghetti western Lina
Wertmuller directed, but you just can't get it, and until I came over here
I'd never seen Sollima's FACE TO FACE, just read about it for years.

GP: What about Corbucci?

QT: Well, Corbucci's OK, but Sollima's fantastic, y'know: FACE TO FACE and THE
BIG GUNDOWN...that one is a particular favorite of mine. Also Damiano
Damiani, who did A BULLET FOR THE GENERAL and CONFESSIONS OF A POLICE
CAPTAIN - with Franco Nero and Martin Balsam - and AMITYVILLE 2. He's
really good...Sergio Leone, naturally...then I discovered Anthony
Dawson...

GP: I just might as well rename the magazine "The Antonio Margheriti fan-club
nwesletter"...he's made pictures in so many different genres - which of
them were the one's that you got into?

QT: Well, let me see...I don't know where it was I started noticing who he
was, but the first movie where I knew I was watching an Anthony Dawson
movie was THE STRANGER AND THE GUN FIGHTER, the Lee Van Cleef / Lo Lieh
kung-fu western. I collect his films, I've got a pretty big Anthony
Dawson collection now. A bunch of my friends and I are into a lot of his
early movies, really neat stuff like CASTLE OF BLOOD and THE LONG HAIR OF
DEATH. But I think probably my favorite Anthony Dawson movie ever is THE
CANNIBALS ARE IN THE STREET (CANNIBAL APOCALYPSE)...

GP: I just did an interview with John Morghen from that movie.

QT: Yeah, I remember that guy from so many movies. That'll be fantastic, I
can't wait for that! He's great, been in...

GP: CANNIBAL FERROX...

QT: Exactly, yeah, and the Lucio Fulci picture GATES OF HELL (CITY OF THE
LIVING DEAD.) So I like CANNIBALS IN THE STREETS, I like THE LAST
HUNTER...it's hysterical, the way these movies have been released and
re-released in America...y'know Dawson did all those Vietnam movies, THE
LAST HUNTER, TORNADO STRIKE FORCE, all these things, and he did them
before RAMBO, they were all actually APOCALYPSE NOW rip-offs. He's a
great rip-off director, he'd do DEER HUNTER rip-offs, which is what THE
LAST HUNTER is, he'd do APOCALYPSE NOW rip-offs...

GP: The original Italian title for CANNIBALS IN THE STREETS translates as
"APOCALYPSE TOMORROW"!

QT: Exactly! What's funny is the fact that when the RAMBO movies came out...
I mean RAMBO is really well done and everything, but it has the flavor of
an Anthony Dawson film...in America they just re-released all of his DEER
HUNTER rip-offs and marketed them as RAMBO rip-offs!

GP: It's like BODY COUNT by Ruggero Deodato, which people say is a FRIDAY THE
13TH rip-off, but FRIDAY THE 13TH itself is just a retread of Mario Bava's
ANTEFATTO (TWITCH OF THE DEATH NERVE, BAY OF BLOOD)...

QT: Exactly!

GP: So who's ripping off whom?

QT: I know, exactly. Another Anthony Dawson movie I like is TAKE A HARD RIDE,
that's a cool one...

GP: Which is the one where they're looking for a map tatooed on a girl's ass?

QT: That's THE STRANGER AND THE GUNFIGHTER...

GP: Oh right, what was confusing me was that it was released over here as
BLOOD MONEY...

QT: Right. After all that stuff I started getting into the mafia movies, a
whole stack of them, and the number one director there was Fernando di
Leo - he's sort of like the Don Siegel of Italy, did a whole bunch of
movies. There are two he did, one was called - I think the original title
of it was RULERS OF THE CITY - and another one called HITMAN. RULERS OF
THE CITY starred Jack Palance and HITMAN starred Henry Silva and Woody
Strode, and they've been retitled so many times in America, because
they've been released and re-released, so five different companies have
them, all under different names...it's common to go into a video store
and find that the owners have the same movie under different titles, and
don't even know it's the same thing...

GP: ...and you get movies witht the art work from completely different movies
on their boxes...

QT: In America that even happened to the MEAN STREETS box! You had like a
still from THE GETAWAY on the MEAN STREETS box! RULERS OF THE CITY has
been known as BIG BOSS, MR. SCARFACE, THE SICILIAN CONNECTION...but
Fernando di Leo is really cool, HITMAN is really a neat movie, and he did
another - I'm almost positive it's him - it's one of my favorites from the
Franco Nero action movies of the '70s, a film called STREET LAW, in
which he stars with Barbara Bach. It's like a DEATH WISH kind of movie,
and it's terrific, man! It is a great, great action film, it's just
really wonderful - Franco Nero is the meak, mild guy, who's pushed into
being a vigilante and stuff - really terrific! A lot of di Leo's movies
were really cool, because sometimes they'd get someone who was a big star
in Italy like Franco Nero, Tomas Milian or someone like that, or sometimes
they'd get an American star, like RICO with Christopher Mitchum, that's a
good one...Robert Blake did a movie over there called RIPPED OFF, before
BARRETTA had happened...they get 'em over there, people like Henry Silva,
but the thing is, whether or not they had an American actor or an Italian
as the lead, they always had a fallen American actor playing the big mob
guy - Martin Balsam or Lee J. Cobb or Richard Conte or Arthur Kennedy,
y'know, all the way down the line...Alain Delon did a good Italian mafia
movie that was released in America, called NO WAY OUT, that's really cool.
Richard Conte is the mob guy in it, the Big Boss Man, he was really good.

GP: Telly Savalas did a lot of those...

QT: Oh, Telly Savalas did a zillion movies in Italy...what's cool though is
that when the mafia movies started, Sergio Sollima just switched from
doing spaghetti westerns to doing mafia crime movies, alright, and his
best was THE FAMILY with Charles Bronson, Jill Ireland, and Telly Savala
...I think it was known in Britain as VIOLENT CITY, because the original
title is CITTA VIOLENTA and Lina Wertmuller wrote the script for that...
it's terrific. What's wild about THE FAMILY is that it's a full-on
remake, with the same story points and everything, of OUT OF THE PAST the
Jacques Tourneur / Robert Mitchum thing...

GP: ...which was also remade as AGAINST ALL ODDS...

QT: Yeah, that was the official remake. Exact same story, but Bronson is a
hitman as opposed to a detective, Telly Savalas is in the Kirk Douglas
part and Jill Ireland's in the Jane Greer role. It's terrific, really
great. Sollima also did a remake of his own movie, THE BIG GUNDOWN, in a
modern setting, called REVOLVER. It's got many titles on video, I've got
it as BLOOD ON THE STREETS. Oliver Reed's in the Lee Van Cleef role.
Other guys I like are Alberto de Martino, Duccio Tessari...

GP: As well as the spaghetti westerns, Tessari made a couple of excellent
gialli - DEATH OCCURED LAST NIGHT and THE BLOODY BUTTERFLY...the one with
Helmut Berger in it...

QT: Oh Yeah! There's one of the Italian mafia movies, I'm trying to remember
if Fernando di Leo did it or not, but it's a great one with Helmut Berger
called MAD DOG. It was terrific, and it's got Helmut Berger as the bad
guy, and he totaly lives up to the title, just an out of control crazy
hitman killer, and this cop's after him...I mean, it's a really cool
movie, it's so neat. And De Martino is just great...

GP: He did a superb film that came out over here as BLAZING MAGNUM...

QT: Which is that one?

GP: Gayle Hunnicutt's in it, and the cop is Stuart Whitman...

QT: Oh yeah, that was called - it had this really arty title in America -
STRANGE SHADOWS IN AN EMPTY ROOM...

GP: Sounds like a literal translation of the original Italian title. There
was a great car chase in it...

QT: Yeah, really great car chase...

GP: ...and a kung-fu fight with a gang of transvestites in a penthouse on top
of a skyscraper...

QT: Yeah, John Saxon's in it, Martin Landau...

GP: Tisa Farrow too...I just think it's a really exceptional movie in the
genre...

QT: I love De Martino, HOLOCAUST 2000's good, THE TEMPTER...

GP: That one was shot by Joe D'Amato...

QT: Oh really?

GP: Yeah, he uses his real name - Aristide Massaccesi - when he's working as
a cinematographer. What do you think of that guy anyway?

QT: It's funny, I haven't seen that many of his movies actually, but Michele
Soavi really gives him the credit for taking a chance on him...

GP: I think it's great that he always gives D'Amato credit for that, when he
could just dismiss him as a hack sleazemeister...

QT: You don't do that to someone who basically made your career for you, I
mean it was D'Amato who really took the chance on Michele's talent -
Dario didn't...Joe D'Amato did it! And STAGEFRIGHT is definitely his best
movie...

GP: Oh, by a mile!

QT: It's better than anything Argento's ever done. The only thing that can
touch it is some of the sequences of OPERA. I love OPERA. It doesn't
work from beginning to end like STAGEFRIGHT does, but some of the
sequnces - you know the first time theyt do the "needles under the eye"
thing, wow! But for my money, in the '80s, STAGEFRIGHT is the best
Italian horror film, and Michele is the most talented guy on the Italian
film scene right now...I mean. I'm going to have to take a look at this
Baino guy's stuff, because you've raved about him to me...

GP: Mariano had a meeting with Soavi, showed him his stuff, and Michele is
supposed to have said to him, "When you get going, the rest of us won't
be able to live with you!"

QT: Wow, I'm really looking forward to seeing the tape of his movie now!

GP: You're so conversant with all these Italian films...everyone knows about
the Hong Kong influence on your work, but how does the Italian stuff show
up in something like RESERVOIR DOGS?

QT: Well, I dunno - it's the same thing with the Hong Kong stuff, I don't know
where it overtly rears its head in the course of the movie...

GP: When I was watching the infamous "cop torture" scene from RESERVOIR DOGS,
with that guy tied in the chair and forced to watch Michael Madsen going
through his routine, it made me think of Cristina Marschillach, tied to
that pillar in OPERA with her eyes pinned open...

QT: Oh yeah, that wasn't conscious, but it's an interesting analogy, yeah...
but the thing about crime films, in particular, is th at the yakuza movies
they make in Japan, the triad movies they make in Hong Kong, the mafia
movies they make in Italy, Jean Pierre Melville's films in France...the
thing is, we're all telling the same stories, but we're all telling them
differently, because we're all from different cultures, different
nationalities, and that's what's really interesting to me, how different
cultures attack the same story. The story's almost exactly the same in
every country, y'know: the hitman's supposed to do something for someone,
but he doesn't do it, so they kill his girlfriend, and then he goes to get
The Big Boss.

GP: It's like a myth...

QT: Right, and in Japan they do it differently, in Hong Kong they do it
differently, in Italy they do it differently. I'm familiar with all this
stuff because I've been watching it my whole life...got the job in the
video store because I'm like a film expert...

GP: And you're a self-taught expert, you didn't learn any of it in film
school...

QT: Hey, they don't teach you "The Films of Anthony Dawson" at UCLA!

GP: That's their loss.

QT: Yeah, right (laughs). The thing about people like Dawson or what's his
name, Enzo G. Castellari or whatever, is that these guys do like a zillion
movies, and I get a kick out of those films because...in the case of those
guys, and in particular Dawson, I mean the guy's a hack but he's a hack
who really knows what he's doing, you're in good hands and they're real
fun, and Castellari...he did a load of disposable stuff like THE BRONX
WARRIORS and all those MAD MAX type movies, but I think he's probably
also the director who's worked with Franco Nero more than anybody...

GP: They did KEOMA

QT: Right, and the crime / action movies they did together are really good.
He did one movie - and I think it's one of the best movies in all Italian
exploitation - THE INGLORIOUS BASTARDS!

GP: That's the one with the GIs in Nazi Germany passing themselves off as
Gestapo men...

QT: Right, they're American soldiers who have been condemned to death and
they escape, so they're trying to get to neutral Switzerland, trying to
carve their way out, fighting both the Americans and the Nazis...

GP: Bo Svenson's in it...

QT: Right, and Fred Williamson. It's terrific, it really is, really good,
and the script is fantastic. It's like a hommage to Sam Peckinpah's
CROSS OF IRON, which was a smash in Italy, so they made a bunch of CROSS
OF IRON ripoffs and that's what this movie, stylistically, is taking its
cue off...

GP: CROSS OF IRON was released on a double bill with SUSPIRIA over here...

QT: CROSS OF IRON just came and went in America, but in Germany and Italy it
was a smash - I always follow these trends, in fact the only one I don't
follow that much, because they really didn't do them that well though
they did them forever - is those post-apocalypse MAD MAX ripoffs. I love
MAD MAX though...

GP: Have you seen RATS - NIGHT OF TERROR by Bruno Mattei?

QT: No, but I've heard a lot about it. He's known as "Vincent Dawn" in the
States...he did a western actually, which I'd be interested to see - it's
called WHITE APACHE. But one of those post-apocalyptic movies I did like
was...I don't know if it was a real Italian one, but this one was about
these guys attempting to repopulate the Earth, Martin Dolman's AFTER THE
FALL OF NEW YORK...

GP: That's Sergio Martino.

QT: Oh Yeah? I didn't realise that was Sergio Martino, that's fantastic!
He's the guy who did, er, CANNIBAL GOD, right, with Ursula Andress and
Stacey Keach...

GP: Depending on where it's released it's either MOUNTAIN or PRISONER or
SLAVE OF THE CANNIBAL GOD...

QT: Yeah, SLAVE OF THE CANNIBAL GOD...

GP: That was released quite cut over here, although it still became a "video
nasty." Maybe the cuts were a factor, but actually I think that's one of
the least entertaining cannibal movies...

QT: Me too.

GP: I mean, Martino's a real pro, always makes a polished movie, but he
doesn't have that kind of tacky edge that someone like Umberto Lenzi
brings to this genre...

QT: CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST is my favorite, a really cool film...but Martino did
a great job on AFTER THE FALL OF NEW YORK...George Eastman's in it as is
"The Big Ape," and there was this one guy in the movie, I don't recall
his name but he's the guy who's protecting the girl once he's found her,
and it's great, because he's kind of like the Italian William Smith....I
see him crop up all the time, he's kind of a real big guy with sandy
colored hair and he just looks like an Italian William Smith. He leads
some rebel crowd in it, and when he finds this woman, the last fertile
woman, he protects her, that kind of thing and he has the same part as the
big guy in THE LADY KILLERS, basically! And Michael Sopkiw's really good
in it too...

GP: He was in BLASTFIGHTER as well...

QT: Yeah, BLASTFIGHTER's really good. I think that's Lamberto Bava's best
movie...

GP: What - better than MACABRE?

QT: MACABRE's pretty good, and I heard that he directed about half of SHOCK,
which I absolutely love...

GP: There's some dispute as to whether he had any hand in directing SHOCK...

QT: Well, people who like SHOCK say it was all Mario, those who don't like it
say Lamberto did it! (laughs) But yeah, I like MACABRE, I really like
BLASTFIGHTER...and I actually like DEMONS 2 more than DEMONS 1, I'm on
the DEMONS 2 side, actually...

GP: What's weird about the way they released those films over here is that
the first one is set in a cinema, and really should be seen in a theatre,
but they just dumped it on video, whereas DEMONS 2 got quite a big
theatrical release.

QT: No kidding, really? DEMONS 2 didn't get a theatrical release in America.
It was really cool. I actually worked for a company for a while -
Imperial Entertainment, it's Imperial America out here, I think - and
they released a bunch of Italian stuff for a long time, so it was really
cool. They released DEMONS 2, which was the biggest of all their Italian
things, they also released some great Italian westerns, Duccio Tessari
films like THE RETURN OF RINGO, and the first RINGO movie, and they
released lots of Larry Ludman movies and Vincent Dawn movies. D'you ever
see that Larry Ludman version of SALVADOR?

GP: He makes about seven movies a week, that guy!

QT: He does, yeah. I can't remember the name of it now, but it was with that
guy who's in BUGSY... "something-Vansomething-else"...he's starred in a
whole bunch of movies, and Roger Wilson, the guy who stars in PORKYS, as
these two photojournalists in Central America, trying to break a story
kind of thing, and it was really cool, a fun movie. I also get a big kick
out his THUNDER WARRIOR series.

GP: Are you into Luigi Cozzi?

QT: He's OK, I mean I liked ALIEN CONTAMINATION...

GP: I told him one that I really enjoyed CONTAMINATION and his reaction was
to just fall about laughing, like it was the most outrageous idea ever
that anyone would compliment him on that movie. I mean, it's easily his
best movie, for Christ's sake...

QT: Yeah, it's definitely my favorite movie of his. He did another one I'd
like to watch, but I can't remeber what it was...

GP: In the horror genre?

QT: Yeah, but I can't remember what it is right now...I like a lot of zombie
movies, like CITY OF THE WALKING DEAD (NIGHTMARE CITY,) the Umberto
Lenzi one.

GP: That's the one with the "dream ending"...

QT: Exactly, but I just love the fact that like, the zombies in this movie
run, shoot machine guns...

GP: ...fly planes...

QT: Yeah, it's like - fuck man, it's no fun being chased by a zombie and he
can run as fast as you! That's so cool, and it was such a neat idea,
based on the whole NOSFERATU thing, to have the plane landing with all
these zombies in it...really cool, and I had a lot of fun with it. I get
a big kick out of all those zombie movies. The only problem I have with
ZOMBIE (ZOMBIE FLESH EATERS) is the fact that people in it don't turn
around fast enough! Me and my friends were watching the movie, and we
all agreed that, like, if you were in this jungle full of flesh eating
zombies, ok, and they turn up behind you, guys in the movies always turn
around like (mimes around v-e-r-y slowly): I would be like the Jesse
Owens, man, Carl fucking Lewis of turning around.

GP: Right, and I always loved the fact that although they know that dead
people are coming back as flesh-eating zombies, they decide to lie down
in the cemetery and have a necking party!

QT: Oh, ZOMBIE has one of the most out of control scenes I've ever seen in
my life! It's the scene where the zombie falls to the bottom od the
ocean floor, and he's just tripping along, minding his own business, and
a shark comes to eat him! So he starts eating the shark! Now what's
weird about that scene is that while you're watching it, it actually
makes a little sense, but when you try and describe this scene to
someone who hasn't seen the movie, they just go, "What? That was in a
movie?!?" and you say, "Yeah, I suppose it sounds pretty wild," but in
the movie it seems like a real commonplace. But my favorite Fulci is
GATES OF HELL...

GP: Could you figure out that ending, though, with the slow motion and the
spider web and everything?

QT: Yeah, yeah, exactly...I have absolutely no idea what that means. HOUSE
BY THE CEMETERY is also great fun, it has that great sequence where the
kid's head is held against the door while his father is on the other side
trying to smash through with an axe. That's more or less a replay of the
scene in GATES OF HELL where they're digging up the girl, which I actually
think, along with the zombie / shark fight, is the best sequence Fulci's
ever done. That "digging up the girl" scene - great! I really love John
Morghen in that film too, he's such a cool character...

GP: Right, he lives in this shack with a blow up doll and a decomposing baby
...but he's still a real wow with the girls...

QT: ...and everybody else talks about him so much, I mean they talk about him
more than they do about any character in the movie, even the priest,
y'know. I think it's so funny, everyone's looking for him, then he bumps
into this teenage girl and it's like, "Hi, how y' doin'?" and they sit
down, smoking a joint and everything...fucking great! I like THE PSYCHIC
(SETTE NOTE IN NERO) too.

GP: We got that that one on satellite over here, but they tend to leave off
any pre-titles sequences, so we lost the scene where the woman falls off
the cliff and gets her head bashed in...

QT: Yeah? But that's a really important scene in the movie!

GP: I know...that film reminds me so much of OBSESSION by Brian de Palma...

QT: Yeah!

GP: It's just got that slow, dreamy, opulent, soft focus kind of feel to
it...really beautiful.

QT: I would agree with that, yeah.

GP: A lot of these Italian movies are a real acquired taste, because some of
them are all action, rat-tat-tat, and others are really slow, and they're
kind of puzzling to people brought up on the pacing of Hollywood movies...

QT: Sure. They are an acquired taste, and you have to forgive a lot of things
in them, but they're fun and I just like the kind of operatic feel that
they bring to it.

GP: Actually, a lot of people on the UK fan scene have turned toward your pal
John Woo's stuff and other Hong Kong movies now as a safer bet for the
out-of-whack, out-of-left-field stuff, because there's a feeling that a
lot of the Italian guys have kind of blanded up their act...

QT: Well, absolutely. That's true, the Italian stuff is pretty unreliable.
I mean, I haven't seen ZOMBIE 3, but I've heard that it really isn't all
that good...

GP: You mean the one that Fulci started but Mattei took over?

QT: That's the one.

GP: Well, there are a lot of laughs to be had from it anyway.

QT: I don't know why it is, why I get such a kick out of them, because they
go crazy with all these zooms and everything...the sense of over-the-
topness in them is really cool, really neat, and I like the fact that
you're into a brand of cinema that not everyone in the world is into...
it's like being in this select little club!

* END *