Here's an interesting vintage Italian horror curio--a fright flick made in the land of lasagna at the same time Bava was directing Black Sunday, one of the few horror films made in the country back then, and one that features some Bava cast and crew. But what did Bava have to do with it? Better yet, what do vampires have to do with it? For the sum of this film is...
By TESS HENSON Do you like mysteries? Do you like movies that are mysteries? I don't necessarily mean mystery movies as a genre, but movies that have some air of the unexplained about them in either the casting, directing, writing or producing aspects. This movie, Atom Age Vampire, USA 1963 (a.k.a. Seddok, l'erede di Satana, Italy 1960; Atom Age Dracula, Seddok, and Son Of Satan), indeed has that mysterious quality. There is NO mystery about the storyline. It is a rather interesting take on the Jekyll and Hyde mythology, mixed with a little mad scientist angle thrown in. A beautiful blonde dancer named Jeanette (played by the ethereal Susanne Loret) is dumped by her boyfriend Pierre (Sergio Fantoni) because she won't "quit that sexy job!" (to quote a Hershey's syrup commercial).
Extremely upset at the outcome of her romantic life, Jeanette gets behind the wheel of her car and drives around erratically for a while before becoming involved in a horrific crash that leaves her once beautiful visage terribly scarred. While in the hospital recovering from the crash, a local professor/doctor (Professor Alberto Levin, played by Alberto Lupo) who has been working on a certain skin-renewing serum, hears of the beautiful dancer's plight and sends his assistant Monique (Franca Parisi) to the hospital to persuade Jeanette to let him help her. Jeanette reluctantly agrees, and off to the professor's lab they go.
The two serums Prof. Levin has been working on, Derma-25 & Derma-28, seem to be polar opposites. Derma-25 has the knack of disfiguring or altering the skin, while Derma-28 restores it. The professor injects Jeanette with the Derma-28, and almost immediately, her scarred face becomes restored to it's former beauty. The professor, now confronted with Jeanette's full-on comeliness, immediately falls for her and begins obsessing, much to the chagrin of his lovely assistant Monique, who is secretly in love with him. However, the Derma-28 has only a short-term effect, as after a day or so, Jeanette begins to complain of an intense burning sensation on the skin of her face, and the scars eventually return. The professor then assumes, in a huge leap of logic (hey, it's a B-rated horror/sci-fi flick), that only the freshest pituitary glands from beautiful women will restore and keep Jeanette in her lovely form. So, he begins to shop around (or is that 'chop' around) for his victims, with Monique becoming the first in a string of many.
The professor injects himself with the Derma-25 in order to alter his looks, so he can prowl the streets at night looking for prostitutes to murder to keep his Jeanette beautiful, and not be recognized. The Derma-25 turns him into a hideous 'Hyde-type' creature, as he reverts to an animalistic form to carry out the killings. Later, back at the lab, he subjects himself to a dose of radiation in a glass chamber to bring his normal looks back. All throughout these experiments and subsequent killings, he is being watched by his slow-witted gardener Sacha (Roberto Bertea), who looks uncannily like a young Mario Bava. But more on Bava later--or maybe not. The story all wraps up fairly nicely with the intervention of a police inspector (played by Ivo Garrani - who also played Prince Vaida in Bava's black and white masterpiece Black Sunday), and the return of Jeanette's ex-boyfriend Pierre, who are both hot on the trail of the killer.
At the end of the movie, they confront the monstrous professor as he tries to hide Jeanette away in his greenhouse. Sacha, his gardener, comes to Jeanette's rescue and kills his employer. As he lay dying, the monster-man transforms back into the likeness of the professor. His death was not in vain however, as he was able to kill enough women and use their pituitary glands to restore Jeanette's beauty permanently. This is a pretty good little film. However, it has nothing to do with vampires, or the atom age - with the exception of the film's title being used as a piece of dialogue during a discourse between the inspector and another scientist he consults, and the stock footage of what is apparently the Hiroshima bomb exploding. So, don't expect any blood-sucking, sharp-toothed debonair types, or any flying beasties, although the artwork on the DVD case, poster and video boxes depicts a winged nasty.
There is a nice little animated intro before the opening credits that features a cute little vampire bat - but don't be fooled - here there be NO vampires. Other than that, it's a fairly interesting little flick, and one that is deserving of a nice Saturday afternoon screening. Ah, but you want to know what the mystery is, don't you? This mystery is this: Is this, or is this NOT, a Mario Bava film? Or more aptly put, did Mario Bava have ANY input on this film at all? The film is directed and co-written by Anton Giulio Majano (on the English language version he goes by Richard McNamara), and it is an Italian film, although all the character's names are seemingly French.
Now here's the fix: Some credits have Mario Bava listed as the producer of the film, some credits have Mario Fava listed, and some credits don't have a listing at all for either Bava or Fava. I have searched the internet and in some film books, and haven't found a definitive answer. You might ask: "Does the film look like a Bava film?" The answer to that is no. The film was released in Italy in 1960, the same year as Bava's Black Sunday. There is no visual comparison whatsoever between these two films. The starkly surreal black and white images of Black Sunday do not compare to the more mundane and rather muddy black and white visuals of Atom Age Vampire. There are no extreme close-ups, no zoom technique, and no faces peering through windows. In other words, if Bava had anything to do with this film artistically, I sure couldn't tell.
Of course, as producer rather than director or cinematographer, you might be inclined to think that perhaps his artistic hand was stayed. Perhaps he was devoting all his visual craft to "Black Sunday" instead. That could be true. Certainly there are connections in this film with other films in Bava's repertoire. The first, and most obvious, is the appearance of Ivo Garrani as the police inspector. Coincidental, or not that he also appears as Prince Vaida in Black Sunday in the same year? Another tie that binds is the composer of the swinging, jazzy musical score for "Atom Age Vampire"--Armando Trovajoli, who would in the next year (1961) compose the score for Bava's sword and sandal pic Hercules In The Haunted World. Yet, with all these connections, it's my guess that in the Italian film community of the Fifties and Sixties, the same actors, composers and other film crewmembers were probably passed around quite a bit between directors.
My source for this article is the bare bones Alpha Video DVD release which presents the film in a full-screen version with no extras. On this particular release the runtime is 87 minutes. There is also a Madacy Entertainment release which pairs this film with one titled Bloodlust (apparently a Most Dangerous Game type of flick) in one of their Killer Creature Double Feature presentations. I would highly recommend any of these very reasonably priced Madacy DVD's as they are replete with neat-o classic drive-in intros and outros, drive-in snack-bar commercials, theatrical trailers of other classic drive-in fare flicks, and a classic cartoon between features (Gumby and Betty Boop are two I know of that are included on some of these Madacy discs).
Interesting to note that my Alpha Video DVD release lists Mario Fava as the producer, while the Madacy DVD release lists Mario Bava in the same slot. The Madacy release also runs 87 minutes. The original Italian release is a full 105 minutes, while most US video versions (not DVD) run a mere 72 minutes. The exception is an ACME US video release that also runs the full 105 minutes, and has no listing at all for either Mario Bava or Mario Fava in the credits. Confusing, no? So, dear reader, perhaps you will take the information supplied here and make your own investigation into the mystery of Mario Bava's supposed involvement with this fun little flick. If you find an answer, will you please let me be the first to know? Thanks, Tess! I guess someone will finally either prove or disprove the Bava connection, but my guess is that he was made a "producer" of this flick after the fact to cash in on the enormous international success of Black Sunday. At any rater, this is a fun little shocker, with enough sleaze to please. Article copyright © Tess Henson |
