Massacre Time: Lucio Fulci in Vietnam

Arrow Video are set to release a new boxset of Italian Westerns in July, entitled Vengeance Trails: Four Classic Westerns, and among the quartet is Lucio Fulci's 1966 film Le Colt Cantarono la Morte e fu... Tempo di Massacro, or Massacre Time as it's most widely known as these days. I'm reminded that Fulci's film is mentioned quite unexpectedly in Mark Bowden's 2017 book Huế 1968: A Turning Point of the American War in Vietnam, a gripping account of the battle waged by Vietnamese and American soldiers for the city of Huế (pronounced "Hway"). At one point in Bowden's street-by-street, building-by-building reconstruction he writes:

Leaving some of his lead platoon to hold the north end of the bridge, Meadows sent Lieutenant Mike McNeil with the remainder into buildings across the street. It was a commercial district. There was a movie theater advertising the Italian Western Tempo di Massacre (Massacre Time) - a title that struck Meadows as both macabre and apt... 

It's pleasing to see Fulci's film momentarily stumbling into the narrative but I wonder was Bowden using a bit of journalistic license to add some color to the story ? Certainly, it's plausible that Fulci's film was playing a theatre in Huế in the early months of 1968. The chronology is at least correct: according to Stephen Thrower's authoritive book Beyond Terror: The Films of Lucio Fulci, the film had its first public screening in Italy in August 1966 and if the dates on the imdb entry are to be believed, the film was in distribution in various Asian countries the following year, such was the popularity of Westerns in Asian markets. And yet, the notion that an American soldier under heavy fire would take note of a title on a film poster (a title in Italian no less!) strains belief. Huế in the 60's was a cultural and intellectual center in Vietnam but I haven't found any evidence to suggest Italian Westerns actually played in Huế or other metropolitan Vietnamese cites - so much scholarship from that era is preoccupied with the American War and the cultural shift that took place after the country was reunified. But no matter, Mark Bowden's book is a masterpiece of military history and if you enjoyed the fiery cauldron of his 1999 book Black Hawk Down, and indeed Stanley Kubrick's film Full Metal Jacket, Huế 1968 will be a vivid and compelling read.

In this month's... Sight & Sound (June 2021)

The latest issue of Fangoria Sight & Sound has arrived and it's refreshing to see the magazine letting its hair down and having a bit of fun on the cover, with Butcher Billy's splendid Video Nasties themed artwork set against a background of color bands that mimic the rainbow lines motif commonly seen on slipcases that housed blank VHS tapes. Inside the magazine Mark Kermode speaks to director Prano Bailey-Bond about her 2021 film Censor set during Britain's halcyon pre-cert VHS era of the early 80's when a slew of violent and transgressive films, many of which had been refused a certificate for cinema exhibition were made available on video. In the film, a censor initially repelled by the content of the videos she examines is drawn into the world of low budget horror films to the point where she can no longer distinguish reality from make believe. On paper it sounds like a mash-up of Videodrome and Berberian Sound Studio, and it will be interesting to see if Sight & Sound's endorsement (S&S writer Alexandra Heller-Nicholas has called the film "an electrifying debut") is deserved. The film is reviewed in the July issue.

One particular ace up Censor's sleeve is the involvement of Kim Newman, serving as the film's executive producer and advisor, and for the Sight & Sound issue he contributes a fine essay on this most controversial chapter of British home video history. Newman recalls that during the debate on the subject, there was the question among film scholars as to whether the titles that were caught up in the dragnet constituted an actual genre a la film noir, or were simply a collection of disparate films that were chosen with little more than a glance at their lurid titles and VHS artwork. It's a fascinating question and worthy of discussion but as Newman reflects, the notion had real life consequences for the anxious videoshop owner who was never quite sure if having a copy of say the Vampix edition of Eaten Alive on the shelf would prompt a reprimand from disapproving police officers. Eaten Alive was typical of the Italian cannibal films that appeared on the DPP lists of contentious titles, it even boasted one of more sadistic and disturbing VHS sleeves of the pre-cert era. And yet astonishingly it never came to the attention of authorities. I tend to think of the list of 39 titles that were prosecuted as essentially random and the selection criteria used haphazard - why a film like The Werewolf and the Yeti appeared on the same list as I Spit on Your Grave makes no sense but as Newman suggests about another innocuous title I Miss You, Hugs and Kisses, perhaps it took little more than a complaint from a disgruntled renter to secure its place on the list. Looking back on the Nasties phenomena - the tabloid scaremongering, the ludicrous soapboxing by politicians and self-appointed guardians of morality, the furor seems as quaint as the demonization of EC Comics in the US in the 50's, and yet the romance of these once outlawed titles has never gone away. Nowadays, the majority of the Nasties can be seen with the censor's blessing and in expertly curated, uncut Blu-Ray editions, but still the very thought of The Devil Hunter and Forest of Fear immediately conjures up grotty VHS cases sitting in the darkest recesses of the videoshop...

The World of David Bowie

I've just finished reading Daryl Easlea's lead feature on David Bowie's 1970's masterpiece The Man Who Sold The World in the May 2021 issue of Record Collector. The circumstances that led to the recording of the album and the inherent mythology that surrounds it - the album's proto-heavy metal licks, the arrival of Mick Ronson, the eerie sci-fi Moog textures, the dress and cowboy covers, the influence of Terry Burns, have all been documented elsewhere in forensic detail, but Easlea's article is superb nonetheless at capturing what was an incredibly exciting time in Bowie's life and music. Seemingly a world away from the songs Bowie had written for the album is the Decca compilation The World of David Bowie which is included in a sidebar of the article - the connection being that the Decca album was the only Bowie record issued in the UK in 1970 - The Man Who Sold the World was still 11 months away, finally arriving in April 1971. Interestingly, Decca's World of... series was more than a vault-emptying exercise, the label's intention was to give curious listeners an affordable introduction to an artist, and the series, if the Discogs listing can be trusted, lasted well in to the 80's. Bowie was pleased that he was joining the likes of Mantovani and Val Doonican on the World of... series, and Bowie himself selected the songs for the album - 10 tracks from his 1967 debut David Bowie plus a few essential odds and sods - The London Boys, Karma Man, Let Me Sleep Beside You and In the Heat of the Morning.

I'm pleased to be reminded of the album again, which served as my introduction to Bowie's pre-RCA years. It was soon supplanted by more comprehensive compilations such the 1972 double-album Images 1966 - 1967 and the 1981 compilation Another Face, which included two Davie Jones numbers Liza Jane and Louie, Louie Go Home but I remain very fond of the World of David Bowie nonetheless. My copy of the album is not the original 1970 edition but 1973 re-press which updated Bowie's 1969 curls to a very 1972-era Ziggy mullet for the sleeve shot, and I'm currently listening to the album, after a fashion, courtesy of the Deram Anthology 1966-1968 CD, programmed to follow The World of David Bowie track listing. Incidentally, the 1973 Dutch re-press which also features the Ziggy cover subtly replaces the fabulous When I Live My Dream with the not so fabulous Laughing Gnome !