Tennessee Williams on Stage & Screen in New York -Festival Begins December 9th
Some Like It Wilder: The Life and Controversial Films of Billy Wilder - Coming in February
5 Chillers in the Universal Cult Horror Collection on DVD
Robert Redford in Downhill Racer on DVD
Ballast - Lance Hammer's Critically Acclaimed Drama
Z - Costa-Gavras's Oscar-winning Thriller on DVD

THE HOWL (l'URLO) - Tinto Brass's Bizarre 1970 Freakout on DVD

It’s a shame that discussions of the “new wave” of French, West German, Czech and even Hollywood films from the late 60s on through the early 80s often neglect the Italian new wave of roughly the same era. Though names such as Antonioni, Bertolucci, Pasolini and even Bellocchio have in certain cineaste circles withstood the test of time, other Italian filmmakers who sought to shoot outside the box have been neglected, or are better remembered for lesser accomplishments. A good example of the latter is Giovanni “Tinto” Brass, the Milanese writer-director who oversaw principal photography of the all-star porn extravaganza Caligula (1979) while Penthouse publisher/producer Bob Guccione’s name that went above the title. (Brass petitioned to have his name removed from the film’s credits when Guccione ordered hardcore inserts not involving lead actors Malcolm McDowell, Helen Mirren, Peter O’Toole and John Gielgud.) Brass had at that point also directed the seminal “Nazspolitation” film Salon Kitty (1976), about the dirty behind-closed-doors doings of a Third Reich brothel. While the filmmaker may be at peace with his reputation as a maker of erotic (and at times controversial) films, his earlier works merit investigation. A one-time assistant director to Alberto Cavalcanti and Roberto Rossellini, Brass struck out on his own with a feature in 1963, helmed the unusual “spaghetti” western Yankee (1966) and then headed to London, where he completed three films that have come to be considered his “London trilogy.”

Squeezed in between his impressionist giallo Deadly Sweet (1967), which starred a post-A Man and a Woman Jean-Louis Trintignant and a pre-Candy Ewa Aulin as dangerous liaisons and Nerosubianco (aka Black on White, which featured African American actor (and former TV newsman) Terry Carter before he became a regular on such series as McCloud and Battlestar Galactica, Brass orchestrated the absurdist romp The Howl (L’Urlo, 1968). Using Mike Nichols’ The Graduate (1967) and Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde (1967) as a jumping off point, the wildly disjointed film follows the picaresque adventures of a young bride (Tina Aumont, daughter of Jean-Pierre Aumont and Maria Montez) who ditches her stuffed shirt of a husband (Nino Segurini) at the altar to take to the road with “heavenly dog” Gigi Proietti. What follows is a seemingly random succession of setpieces whose ulterior motive is to unseat the primacy of control in general and church and state in particular through a smorgasbord of cultural taboos. Dressed in a variety of outfits (from the prison stripes of a Mack Sennett two-reeler to the cutaway coat and derby of Charlie Chaplin’s Little Tramp), Proietti leads his purloined lover on a seemingly hallucinogenic-spiked spirit walk through such “mondo” type situations as a bordello (in which full frontal nudity and implied masturbation are intercut with military fetish gear and the onscreen beheading of a live goose) and a forest community of caveman philosopher-cannibals. (One half expects Aumont and Proietti to run into the crew from Godard’s Week-end.) All the while Brass cuts in stock footage of student protests, Italian cinema, Fascist propaganda and whatever seemed appropriate at the time. Not for all tastes and often maddeningly smug even for those accustomed to novella vague longuers, The Howl is nonetheless a true product of and a valid reaction to its turbulent place in time.

Tinto Brass contributes a low key but informative audio commentary for this exclusive DVD release from Cult Epics. Speaking in thickly accented English, Brass recounts the origins of the project, how he cajoled producer Dino de Laurentiis into financing the film with little more than a political manifesto threatening to “blow up the screen,” how he paid student extras for an extended concert/orgy scene with drugs rather than money and how the finished film was butchered by Italian censors. Brass speaks glowingly of leading lady Tina Aumont, whom he thought at the time the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Aumont appeared in Salon Kitty and Brass had written a new part for her for a film in which she would have symbolized the richness and mystery of Venice, when he learned of her untimely death in 2006. Easily lost under the end credit music is Brass’ account of how he turned down the opportunity to direct A Clockwork Orange (1971)! Cult Epics transfer of this rare film is dispiritingly homely, washed out and flecked with various emulsion blemishes and tears but perhaps that’s the price to be paid for a peek at something so long forgotten. (The source materials for the all-region disc are allegedly Brass’ personal property.) The film is framed at 1.85:1 and enhanced for widescreen playback.

For more information about The Howl (L’Urlo), visit Cult Epics. To order The Howl (L’Urlo), go to TCM Shopping.

by Richard Harland Smith