I Know That You Know That I Know stars its director, Alberto Sordi, as Fabio Bonetti, a banker who has been married to his wife Livia (Monica Vitti) for more than twenty years. All he cares about these days are football and watching TV. And then they meet a private detective (Giuseppe Mannajuolo) who has been filming them for two weeks, as he has been hired by the rich Vitali to watch his wife Elena (Micaela Pignatelli), but accidentally filmed them.

That’s when he shares what he has learned: their teenage daughter Veronica (Isabella De Bernardi) is on drugs, Livia is cheating on Fabio and, well, Fabio has days to live thanks to a mystery disease. That’s when Fabio decides to change his life. He’s never shown love to his daughter, who dresses in his clothes to shock him. He chose football matches over his wife and pushed her into another man’s bed. So he decides that before he dies, he’s going to fix his family.

Written by Sordi with Augusto Caminito (The Designated Victim) and Rodolfo Sonego (Vacanze di Natale ’91), this raises the same question I always have for American sitcoms. How could Monica Vitti — she was Modesty Blaise! — end up with Alberto Sordi? Some guys have all the luck.

You can watch this on YouTube.

A festival in Naples is in trouble. The scaffolding outside the theater has crashed down, then a postcard arrives and says that anyone involved will be killed. Journalists Michele Giuffrida (Lello Arena) and Lisa Sole (Maddalena Crippa) start to track down who sent that warning.

Whoever that killer is, they have it out for Italian saxophone player James Senese, who plays himself, and actor Massimo Troisi, who also wrote the script, also playing himself. How dare they appear in the Nuova Napoli festival?

You don’t see many movies where people playing themselves get killed, but that’s what happens as Senese is hit by a car and Troisi is strangled and has a pizza jammed into his mouth. As to who is behind it all, it’s the person you would least expect, which is how so many giallo movies operate. The killer is also stuck on the song “Funiculi, Funicula” which was written in 1880 by Luigi Denza and Peppino Turco to celebrate the first funicular railway on Mount Vesuvius.

No Thanks, Coffee Makes Me Nervous is about a time when Naples was becoming known for new things and changing, which is something the killer is against. The first movie of director Lodovico Gasparini, it was written by Michael Pergolani and Troisi.

You can watch this on YouTube.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Today’s movie is brought to you by AC Nicholas, who has graciously become a Big B&S’er, a monthly supporter of the site and got to pick an entire week of movies. His idea this time was for a series on movies that started as one film and were dubbed into something else.

Would you like to have me write about the movies of your choice? It’s simple!

1. Go to our Ko-Fi site and donate. There’s no set amount and I won’t tell you what to do. In fact, if you just keep reading for free, we can still be friends.
2. Join as a monthly member for just $1. That makes you a Little B&S’er.
3. As a Medium B&S’er at just $3 a month, if you pick a movie or a director, I’ll write about them for you. In fact, I’ll do one for each month you subscribe and even dedicate the post to you.
4. For $5 a month, you basically get some major power. As a Big B&S’er, I’ll write an entire week on any subject you’d like. How awesome would that be? In fact, I’ll do it for every month you’re a member. Do you think any of your other movie sites will do that for you?

Bambi (Eva Arnez) is a female karate fighter and pro wrestler who no longer loves combat. Barney (Barry Prima) is a martial artist who helps her find the eye of the tiger again. That’s needed because she needs to raise money for an operation to save the life of her brother.

Or maybe not, because 1982’s Jopi Burnama-directed Perempuan Bergairah (Passionate Woman) was remixed by Troma’s Charles Kaufman. If your idea of the height of humor is repeated bathroom jokes, you’ll love this. I must admit that I did laugh when a woman yelled when Bambi wins a fight, “Come see me tonight, I have a vibrator!” and Bambi replies,”Mine has all five speeds!”

Now for the real description of the original from IMDB: “Renny Basuki (Eva Arnaz) is a young woman and a former judo champion who, after her father’s demise, tries to look after her impoverished family. When her younger brother is diagnosed with a deadly disease, she is desperate to afford his surgery costs. One day, Indra (Prima), a professional wrestling manager, offers Renny and her friend Mia (Diana Suarkom) a place in his female wrestling troupe. They agree but Renny’s mother disapproves her wrestling career.”

As much as I love how much pro wrestling this has, not to mention a snake in the bath scene that shot for shot rips off A Nightmare On Elm Street plus a man’s face being erased by acid and someone else getting blown up with explosive throwing stars and then brass knuckles being used to punch someone’s eyeball out of their head, I am not a fan of Barry Prime being made into Elvis.

Then again, because of this movie, I hunted down the original.

Troma also made Ferocious Female Freedom Fighters Part 2 from another movie with Arnaz in it, Barang Terlarang (Violent Killer).

You can watch this on Tubi.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Today’s movie is brought to you by AC Nicholas, who has graciously become a Big B&S’er, a monthly supporter of the site and got to pick an entire week of movies. His idea this time was for a series on movies that started as one film and were dubbed into something else.

Would you like to have me write about the movies of your choice? It’s simple!

1. Go to our Ko-Fi site and donate. There’s no set amount and I won’t tell you what to do. In fact, if you just keep reading for free, we can still be friends.
2. Join as a monthly member for just $1. That makes you a Little B&S’er.
3. As a Medium B&S’er at just $3 a month, if you pick a movie or a director, I’ll write about them for you. In fact, I’ll do one for each month you subscribe and even dedicate the post to you.
4. For $5 a month, you basically get some major power. As a Big B&S’er, I’ll write an entire week on any subject you’d like. How awesome would that be? In fact, I’ll do it for every month you’re a member. Do you think any of your other movie sites will do that for you?

Where could Steve Martin and Carl Reiner go after The Jerk and The Man with Two Brains? How about to the world of film noir?

At lunch with Reiner and screenwriter George Gip, Martin discussed using a clip from an old film as part of a story he was writing. From that came the idea to use old clips throughout a movie to remix, recut and reframe an entirely new narrative that would place Martin into the world of film noir, using some of those that helped make those classic films, like costume designer Edith Head*, who made more than twenty suits and production designer John DeCuir, who designed 85 sets for the film.

Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid casts Martin as Rigby Reardon, who comes to the aid of cheese heiress Juliet Forrest (Sela Ward) after the mysterious death of her father. Throughout the narrative, they come into contact with all manner of famous actors and characters, including Alan Ladd as The Exterminator who attacks Martin (taken from This Gun for Hire), Barbara Stanwyck from Sorry, Wrong Number, Ray Milland from The Lost Weekend, Ava Gardner footage taken from both The Killers and The Bribe, Burt Lancaster from The Killers, Humphrey Bogart as Philip Marlowe using scenes from The Big Sleep, In a Lonely Place and Dark Passage, Cary Grant from Suspicion, Ingrid Bergman from Notorious, Veronica Lake** from The Glass Key, Bette David from Deception, Lana Turner footage from Johnny Eager and The Postman Always Rings Twice, Edward Arnold from Johnny Eager, Kirk Douglas from Walk Alone, Fred MacMurray from Double Indemnity, James Cagney from White Heat, Joan Crawford from Humoresque and Charles Laughton and Vincent Price from The Bribe. Whew!

These eighteen movies*** — plus footage shot at Culver City’s Laird International Studios, the same place where Suspicion, Rebecca and Spellbound were all made — create a narrative all its own, much how beats and samples come together to make a new song within the world of hip hop.

There’s so much detail in this movie, which is because of the talents of the filmmakers, including  director of photography Michael Chapman , who worked with Technicolor to seamlessly match the old film clips with his new footage.

I find it really intriguing that Martin came out of another period piece, Pennies from Heaven, into this movie, while Sela Ward played the woman at the center of the modern noir Sharky’s Machine before this.

* *The film was dedicated to Head, who died soon after it was completed, with the credits saying, “To her, and to all the brilliant technical and creative people who worked on the films of the 1940’s and 1950’s, this motion picture is affectionately dedicated.”

**Cheryl Rainbwaux Smith also was the double for Lake in this scene, which I heartily endorse.

*** Nineteen if you count the car crash in the beginning, which came from Keeper of the Flame.

Director Mario Bianchi made some interesting movies. Kill the Poker Player AKA Creeping Death combines the Italian West with giallo. He was the director of the “Lucio Fulci Presents” films Sodoma’s Ghost and The Murder Secret. Nightmare in Venice, which adapts Arthur Schnitzler’s Traumnovelle before Eyes Wide Shut. He wrote Tragic Ceremony. And he finished his career doing adult under the names Nicholas Moore, David Bird, Tony Yanker and Martin White, making movies like Sexy Killer, a remake of La Femme Nikita and The Castle of Lucretia.

Producer Gabriele Crisanti and screenwriter Piero Regnoli wanted to remake Malabimba The Malicious Whore and even brought back Mariangela Giordano, who had stopped working with Cristiani and dating him after that movie, saying that she felt “used, abused and exploited.” That should tell you how far the movie went, as she had worked with the producer on movies like Giallo In Venice and Patrick Still Lives, two of the most reprehensible late 70s Italian exploitation films, not to mention her stunning scene in Burial Ground where she allows her zombie son to feed on her bare breast.

Where the original film was very sleazy, it did not go all the way into hardcore. This one goes all the way and had softcore (La Bimba di Satana) and hardcore (Orgasmo di Satana) versions.

In a remote Spanish castle, the Aguilar family is mourning the passing of Countess Maria (Marina Hedmann, who appeared in Emanuelle in America and Images in a Convent as well as adult films) whose body lies in state. The family doctor (Giancarlo Del Duca) claims that her death was from a heart attack, yet everyone thinks her husband Antonio (Aldo Sanbrell) murdered her.

Everyone has been seduced by Maria, from the doctor to Antonio’s wheelchair-bound brother Ignazio (Alfonso Gaita) to the nun, Sol (Giordan) who cares for the ill uncle. The family butler Isidro (Joe Danvers) brings her spirit back into Maria’s teenage daughter Mira (Jaqueline Dupré) and helps her get revenge.

Sanbrell had issues working with adult stars. In Roberto Curti’s Italian Gothic Horror Films 1980-1989, he has a quote that says, “We had to shoot a love scene, Marina and I… Well, I was lying on the bed, waiting for her, and when she showed up we started making out; after a while I realized that she was doing it for real and I had to stop her.” Sambrell contacted Crisanti to say that he could not work under these conditions and he was replaced in the lovemaking scenes by Gaita, who also worked in pornography.

Not to be outdone with just being outright filth, the poster also rips off Boris Vellejo’s “The Vampire’s Kiss.”

Giorgio (Renato Pozzetto, My Wife Is a Witch) has to move from Milan to Rome. In order to convince his girlfriend Candida (Gloria Guida, Blues Jeans) to come with him, he promises to find the perfect house for them — and by them, I mean her mother (Lia Zoppelli) is part of the plans — and he finds a mansion for a price that seems too good to be true.

Guida also appears in the prologue, in which she’s another Candida, who has been cursed by her witch of a mother (also Zoppelli) to marry the evil Ali Amman instead of her true love Giorgiafat (also Pozzetto). The witch turns teh young lovers into salt statues and forces their souls to wander for a thousand years and a thousand years more if Candida remains a virgin. Now, they have been reincarnated as…guess who.

There are all manner of poltergeists in this giant house out to keep Giorgio and Guida from making love, including his dog Gaetano, which somehow gets a Southern accent. It even has a scene where Giogio transforms into The Hulk.

This was directed and written — along with Mario Amendola,  Mario Cecchi Gori, Giovanni Manganelli and Enrico Oldoini — by Bruno Corbucci. Yes, the same man who made The Great Silence, one of the most depressing Westerns of all time. Look for him in a cameo as Gateano’s vet.

Carlo Ausino — Charles Austin — started his directing and writing career with La città dell’ultima paura, which he followed with Double Game, which also has Annarita Grapputo in the cast. As you can guess, it got this title when released in other countries, as it’s called La Villa Delle Anime Maledette (The Villa of the Cursed Souls) in Italy.

In 1955, two men are fighting. One kills the other with a knife, then a woman grabs the knife and stabs the killer. She runs into a cemetery where she’s dragged into a grave by a demon’s hand. This is called how to start a movie in a great way.

Years later, her daughter Elisa (Grapputo, who is also in Magnum Cop and Like Rabid Dogs) is at a seance when she hears her dead mother warn her to never go to the villa.

So she goes to the villa.

That’s because she and her cousins Bruno (Fausto Lombardi) and Tony (Antonio Campa) inherit the place and are told they can never sell it or rent it. They have to keep on the caretaker (Paul Teitcheid), and all move in. Bruno even brings his wife Sonia (Ileana Fraia, The Killer Nun), who is the first to die when she’s hit by a car. At this point, both Bruno and Tony realize that they’re in an Italian exploitation movie and decide to have sex with their cousin, who is a virgin. Not at the same time. I mean, they may be incestual, but they have some morality. Well, not Bruno, who has to have a heir and who always believed it was his wife’s fault he didn’t have a child, so he tries to assault Elisa, who has learned that she’s of the seventh generation cursed by the house, thanks to a diary.

While all that’s happening, the lawyer who read the will has a secretary who used to be his lover named Martha (Beba Loncar, Interrabang) who is also a student of the occult. When her lover Ugo (Jean-Pierre Aumont, Cauldron of Blood) dies, she also comes to the villa.

There’s also a giallo killer wandering outside, as well as lots of fog inside. I have no idea what the curse on Elisa was other than she’s in a haunted house. Then again, this has a great tagline, “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust — but not for long!” As you can see, that also sounds good and makes no sense. Maybe that’s why I like this movie. It’s an Italian Gothic, which means it’s probably not going to be logical and this movie just totally overachieves on that.

I love this movie but you’re probably going to hate it.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Hu (Eddy Ko Hung) has had four men selected to transport a gift through enemy lands. They include a thief named Yao Jie (Yuen Yat-chor), Bu the dynamite expert (Fan Mui-sang), a postman named Ma (Leung Kar-Yan) and conman Fu Jun (Chow Yun-Fat). They have a week to deliver the box and must never open it. They’re joined by Guihwa (Cherie Chung Cho-hung), who wants to free her sister from slavery somewhere in the city.

It seems simple, but soon there is a ninja, masked killers on ice skates and all manner of criminals out to take whatever is in the package. Yuen Woo-Ping directed the action.

Chow Yun-Fat may be the selling point to American audiences, but Leung Kar-Yan is the hero. But I mean, ice skating ninjas. That’s worth watching.

Director Ronny Yu also made The Bride with the White Hair before coming to the U.S. where he directed Bride of Chucky and Freddy vs. Jason before going back home to make Fearless.

The 88 Films blu ray of this movie has the Hong Kong and export versions of the film, two sets of commentary, one with Frank Djeng and Ronny Yu and the other with Stephan Hammond, as well as interviews with Chow Yun-Fat, Leung Kar-Yan and Ronny Yu, and a trailer. You can get it from MVD.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Murder Mansion was on Chiller Theater on Saturday, February 2, 1980 at 1 a.m. It also aired on July 31, 1982.

Originally released as La Mansion de la Niebla (The Mansion in the Fog) and also known as Murder Mansion, this Spanish/Italian film fuses old school haunted house horror with the then new school form of the giallo.

The plot concerns a variety of people drawn to a house in the fog, so the original title was pretty much correct. There are plenty of European stars to enjoy, like Ida Galli, who also uses the name Evelyn Stewart and appeared in Fulci’s The Psychic as well as The Sweet Body of Deborah. And hey, there’s Analía Gadé from The Fox with the Velvet Tail. Hello, George Rigaud, from All the Colors of the Dark and The Case of the Bloody Iris! They’re all here in a movie that seems to make little or no sense and then gets even more bonkers as time goes on.

This was one of the 13 titles included in Avco Embassy’s Nightmare Theater package syndicated in 1975 (the others were Marta, Death Smiles on a Murderer, Night of the Sorcerers, Fury of the Wolfman, Hatchet for the Honeymoon, Horror Rises from the Tomb, Dear Dead Delilah, Doomwatch, Bell from Hell, Witches Mountain, The Mummy’s Revenge and The Witch). How did these movies play on regular TV?

There’s a history of vampires in the house, the previous owner was a witch and hey — this is starting to feel like an adult version of Scooby Doo with better-looking ladies. That’s not a bad thing. But if you’ve never watched a badly dubbed giallo-esque film before, don’t expect any of this to make a lick of sense.