Mario Bava

[Michael]

Mario Bava (1914 - 1980)



FILMOGRAPHY

As Director

La maschera del demonio / Black Sunday / The Mask of Satan (1960)

Ercole al centro alla terra / Hercules at the Center of the Earth / Hercules in the Haunted World (1961)

Gli invasori / Erik the Conqueror / Fury of the Vikings (1961)

La ragazza che sapeva troppo / The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1963)

I tre volti della paura / Black Sabbath (1963)

La frusta e il corpo / The Body and the Whip (as John M. Old, 1963)

Sei donna per l'assassino / Blood and Black Lace (1964)

La strada per Fort Alamo / Arizona Bill / The Road to Fort Alamo (as John M. Old, 1964)

Terrore nello spazio / Planet of the Vampires (1965)

Coltelli del vendicatore / Knives of the Avenger (1966)

Operazione paura / Kill, Baby...Kill! (1966)

Spie vengono dal semifreddo / Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs (1966)

Diabolik / Danger: Diabolik (1968)

5 bambole per la luna d'agosto / Five Dolls for an August Moon (1970)

Il rosso segno della follia / Hatchet for the Honeymoon (1970)

Roy Colt e Winchester Jack / Roy Colt and Winchester Jack (1970)

Reazione a catena / Twitch of the Death Nerve / Bay of Blood (1971)

Gli orrori del castello di Norimberga / Baron of Blood (1972)

Quante volte...quella notte / Four Times That Night (1972)

La casa dell'escorcismo / Lisa and the Devil (1973)

Cani arrabbiati / Rabid Dogs (1974)

Schlock / Beyond the Door II / Shock (1977)

Co-Directorial Efforts

La donna piu bella del mondo / The World's Most Beautiful Woman / Beautiful But Dangerous (with Robert Z. Leonard, 1954)

I vampiri / The Vampires (with Riccardo Freda, 1956)

Le fatiche di Ercole / Hercules / The Labors of Hercules (with Pietro Francisci, 1957)

Ercole e la Regina di Lidia / Hercules Unchained (with Pietro Francisci, 1959)

Caltiki, il mostro immortale / Caltiki - The Immortal Monster (with Riccardo Freda, 1959)

La battaglia di Maratona / The Giant of Marathon (with Jacques Tourneur, 1959)

Agi Murad, il diavolo bianco / The White Warrior (with Riccardo Freda, 1959)

Esther e il re / Esther and the King (with Raoul Walsh, 1960)

Le meravigli di Aladio / The Wonders of Aladdin (with Henry Levin, 1961)

L'ultimo del Vichingi / The Last of the Vikings (with Giacomo Gentilomo, 1962)

Le avventure di Ulisse / The Adventures of Ulysses (with Franco Rossi, 1968 - feature length version of the Italian TV mini-series "Odissea", which includes the episode "Polifemo", directed by Mario Bava)

Inferno (with Dario Argento, 1980)

Short Films

L'orecchio (1946)

Anfiteatro flavio (1946)

Santa notte (1946)

Legenda sinfonica (co-directed with Riccardi Melani, 1947)

Nostalgia Napoletana (1947)

Variazioni sinfoniche (1949)

L'amore nell'arte (1959)

I futuribili (1970, umbrella name for several sci-fi-themed TV commercials made by Bava for Mobil Oil)

GENERAL DISCUSSION

Mario Bava

Italian Horror

RECOMMENDED WEB RESOURCES

The Mario Bava Web Page

Senses of Cinema

Senses of Cinema - Black Sunday aka The Mask of Satan

Images - a short biography by Tim Lucas

Images - The Illusion of Reality by Alain Silver and James Ursini

Chicago Reader

Wikipedia

Mondo Digital

Italian site - many images

DVD

Anchor Bay: Bava Box Set

BOOKS

All the Colors of the Dark by Tim Lucas

The Haunted World of Mario Bava by Troy Howarth (out of print)

[DDillaman]

My other favorite Bava film besides BLACK SUNDAY is KILL, BABY ... KILL!, which I don't think has made it to DVD in a proper aspect ratio yet. There's been a special edition in the works for as long as Tim Lucas's book on Bava has been in the works, but nothing has surfaced yet. (On either front, really.) But even in the crappy desaturated VHS copy I saw, there's still a delirium and wonder about that film that's great.

I also like WHIP AND THE BODY a lot. Not as keen on BLOOD AND BLACK LACE, though it has its partisans, and RABID DOGS - a departure on most fronts - does very little for me.

Highest on my to-see list are BLACK SABBATH, DANGER: DIABOLIK, and PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES.

[djali999]

For my money, Black Sabbath (or The Three Faces of Fear or whatever you want to call it) is Bava's absolute masterwork. See the DVD version; the AIP recut loses Bava's intended rising momentum of delirium.

Good news for Bava fans: you may have noticed that copies of Black Sunday / Mask of the Demon shipped out to various retailers recently. This is because this is Image's last hurrah with Bava: Anchor Bay has announced they've acquired the rights to his library and will be releasing special editions.

A few notes on Kill, Baby... Kill!, which is first class gothic horror. I own the film in three versions: the fullframe Diamond Entertainment version, the fullframe VCI version, and a widescreen uncut version available through Midnight Video. I can't quite dispose of either as the Diamond version has the best contrast, the VCI the best color, and the Midnight Video the full version.

The "Uncut" version is actually not different at all: in America, United Artists simply took some odd outtake footage of Bava apparently spinning his camera in circles in boredom and stuck it under the titles which in the Italian print simply hold on a bloody fence. Aside from that there's nothing missing. The fullframe versions make hash of some of Bava's compositions, but the full aspect ratio appears to be something like 1.77:1 and you don't lose too much. So if you have to see it now, the VCI disc is not a bad choice.

Alfredo Leone with held his print of KBK after Image had recorded a Tim Lucas commentary for more money and it never appeared on DVD (lucas even asks you to "tune in next time" for his KBK commentry at the end of Black Sunday). Hopefully Anchor Bay will rescue this brilliant film from obscurity along with a few others of him that deserve a reappraisal, including Five Dolls For An August Moon (a much more fun and wacky thriller than Blood and Black Lace, for my money). Along with Lucas' Bava book finally being published in September, this is a good time for horror.

[Lino]

Well, well, well...surprise, surprise! I watched it last night (intially with the italian dub but quickly changed it to english) and already went through all the extras.

The thing is, one extra tells us that this edition restores a scene to its rightful place in the film for the first time ever on home video. It's the scene where Barbara Steele is talking with her father's character outside the house which has been placed wrongly on all other home video versions (I guess it's a kind of deleted scene as there's no english audio on it - we do get english subs for that scene, though) and now it segues into that beautiful living room scene where she is playing a gorgeous piano melody while her brother is cleaning a shot gun and her father is seated by the fireplace. According to that extra feature, this change has been made according to the original script sequence.

I think that for this reason alone, this should be considered the only DVD to buy for its accuracy reasons.

BTW, is that outside scene included on the Image Entertainment edition?

(P.S. the movie was a hoot!)

[colinr0380]

Another book that is worth checking out is Troy Howarth's The Haunted World of Mario Bava from FAB Press which is set out in a similar way to Stephen Thrower's Beyond Terror: The Films of Lucio Fulci - theres an overview of the career, chapter by chapter synopsis and discussion of each of the films and a couple of excellent interviews. Unfortunately it looks as if it is out of print at the moment according to the FAB Press website, but perhaps there might be some copies available.

I have not seen many of Bava's films but love Barbara Steele and Black Sunday/Mask Of The Demon is still one of her best - there are not many actresses who could have appeared in that, the first film made by Michael (Witchfinder General) Reeves: The She Beast, 8.5, Young Torless, Jonathan Demme's first film: Caged Heat, Shivers and Pirahna! What a career and she's always memorable even if the parts are small!

Have just watched Team America: World Police and it seemed to me that the secret base in Mount Rushmore was another nod to the one in Danger: Diabolik. I wonder if that was deliberate - after all if the Beastie Boys have done it maybe Trey Parker and Matt Stone have as well!

Four Times That Night is another film I thought was good, if not very politically correct! - a saucy sex film version of Rashomon!

Or how about Lisa and the Devil with Telly Savalas!

Shock is the only other film I've managed to see so far, but it is also very good with a woman (Daria Nicolodi) moving with her son into her new husband's house and starting to believe that her young son is possessed by the spirit of her first husband who died in mysterious circumstances.

The stories that always come to mind about his work is that is seems that A Bay Of Blood/Twitch Of The Death Nerve was probably one of the influences on Friday The 13th, and also that Mario Bava was also involved with the underwater sequence at the beginning of Dario Argento's Inferno. (his son Lamberto was the asssistant director, so I guess that was why Mario Bava became involved)

[Fletch F. Fletch]

Highest on my to-see list are BLACK SABBATH, DANGER: DIABOLIK, and PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES.

Those are among my 3 favorite Bava films!

I would also whole-hearted recommend Black Sabbath, which is probably my all-time favorite Bava film. "The Wurdalak" story is undeniably the creepiest of the bunch. Excellent movie! And for sheer atmosphere, I really enjoy Planet of the Vampires. Such a visually arresting film (as are most of Bava's).

I always found Five Dolls for an August Moon quite a hoot. The dated late '60s fashion and the soundtrack!

[ByMarkClark.com]

BLACK SUNDAY, BLOOD AND BLACK LACE and the underrated THE WHIP AND THE BODY are all essential viewing for anyone remotely interested in Bava. Beyond that troika, I'd suggest BLACK SABBATH, KILL BABY KILL and PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES.

Nearly every Bava film is worth seeing, however. The only exceptions that spring to mind are his inane comedies, FOUR TIMES THAT NIGHT and DR GOLDFOOT AND THE GIRL BOMBS.

[der_Artur]

1. Concerning "Kill, Baby... Kill!":
I own the german DVD by Anolis, which has, as the beaver states, the best image (link). Nevertheless, the master of this DVD is cut in one shot, so Anolis had to insert this shot from an other, much lesser master. Because of the violence this shot depicts, which is more graphic than in the rest of the picture, i'm pretty sure this was cut for reasons of censorship.
Here is what it looks like:

Spoiler

So, is this shot contained in all the other DVD editions of this Title? And if, is it contained in the same bad Quality?

2. General recommendation:
"Blood and black lace" is an obvious one, just because it was a starting point for the giallo-genre, although together with his first giallo "The girl who knew too much". I have not seen the letter, but read, that it is much more similar to Hichcock's black comedies than to the later giallo movies. In "Blood and black lace" on the other hand you have all the Topoi of the giallo: violent murders, a world full of decadence and a powerless police-force, so this is the real beginning.
My own recommendation would be "Bay of blood". It is one of the darkest comedies I have ever seen. It is full of graphic murders and lacks a logical story up to the end, when everything is explained. It is just a great, visual tale of greed and misanthropy and of what comes with it.

[djali999]

Girl Who Knew Too Much is another masterpiece and the starting point for giallo, pre Blood and Black Lace and the color giallo sequence in Black Sabbath.

Golgothicon: I remember that shot in my versions of the film. If I recall, it looked just the same as the rest of the picture. I'm not so sure if it's that much more graphic than the spikes going through the girl or the whipping with the thorns, however....

Annie: the scene is on the Image DVD, but as an extra. There's a convoluted rationale included by Lucas as to why it wasn't integrated into the film proper which I can't recall, but it made sense at the time.

[ltfontaine]

I'm only recently discovering the wonders of Mario Bava myself, and am really looking forward to the forthcoming Anchor Bay special editions. There is an excellent overview of Bava's career here:

http://www.chireader.com/movies/archive ... 117_2.html

My daughter has pointed out an inadvertently funny bit of business in Black Sunday involving a peasant girl, a milk cow and an oddly timed peal of thunder.

[Fletch F. Fletch]

Here is a really nice site dedicated to all things Bava:

http://members.tripod.com/mariobava/

Definitely worth a look.

[Michael]

I just read something interesting about Bava's early effort I Vampiri being the first film that sparked the Italian horror cinema. Is that for real? Is this film worth checking out?

I watched Lisa and the Devil tonight and loved it tremendously. What a beautiful, bizarre piece of cinema. At moment I thought I was watching the best of 70s American television.. plenty, plenty of zooms, delicious fashion and Kojak.

[Matt]

I'm glad you enjoyed Lisa and the Devil. I'm always trying to get people who like horror to watch that.

I Vampiri is not all Bava. He picked up the slack after Riccardo Freda abandoned the project. It can be a little slow in parts, but it's got some great images. I'm always skeptical of particular films being "firsts" in film history (there's usually someone else who was first but is now forgotten), but this film certainly helped launch Bava's career.

[David Ehrenstein]

Barbara Steele

http://ehrensteinland.com/htmls/g008/barbarasteele.html

is a Goddess!

Five Dolls for an August Moon is compulsively watchable without making a lick of sense. Danger: Diabolik is exquisite.

[Michael]

Watched Lisa and the Devil again last night. This film is the best testament in why second viewings can be very important. The second viewing of this film was a totally different experience and everything clicked together, transforming the film into something ultimately brilliant.. a complete masterpiece. The plot is so bizarre that nothing makes sense the first time around. But the second time, the picture comes together so breathtakingly that there is no way to express or explain this revelation in words. It also striked me as a very sad film.. profound melancholy soaked up every scene so much that in the end, I felt sad for the character Lisa. She doesn't say much in the film but her presence is so incredibly strong that you couldn't help identifying with her.

And I must add: as expected, Alida Valli was grand as the blind Contessa. Cinema seems to love Valli getting killed.

If you love Carnival of Souls, then this is the film for you. They both have the similar vibe and emotions. A woman lost in the maze of the unknown... with zombies and ghosts.

[Gordon]

Lisa and the Devil is indeed a masterpiece.

The Italian DVD from Raro is the best:
www.xploitedcinema.com/dvds/dvds.asp?title=3533

Anamorphic, finer frain structure and with slightly better colour than the non-anamorphic Image disc, though it lacks Alfredo Leone's maniacal commentary.


The German edition of The Whip and the Body is the best edition and also features the Tim Lucas commentary that the R1 has. Available here: www.xploitedcinema.com/dvds/dvds.asp?title=5636


I love Planet of the Vampires. One of the great colour films, I feel - extraordinary use of colour by Bava. The R1 from MGM is going OOP, but is non-anamorphic, anyway. The German editon is anamorphic, though. The Italian edition features the Italian dialogue track and is slightly longer than the english-language AIP version. Available HERE.


Some U.S. outfit called Jef Films are releasing Rabid Dogs in July: See here. The folks over at the DVD Maniacs Forum reckon it is a bootleg of the previous OOP Lucertola Media edition, which is poor, frankly. The German edition is far superior, as this comparison proves. Unfortunately, the German disc does not have english subtitles.

[otis]

extraordinary use of colour by Bava.

I'll second that and post a few caps. This film features some of the woodenest acting ever to grace the screen, and some of the cheapest special effects, but somehow Bava manages to produce atmosphere from pure colour. Easy to see the influence on Argento in Suspiria and Inferno (in terms of colour, that is...). And it's got some of the kinkiest spacesuits ever. Incidentally, any Europeans out there looking to buy Italian Bava discs may be better off checking prices here. PM me if you need any help.

[Gordon]

Terrific, Otis!

The Italian dialogue version is said to be much less clunky. It is also slightly longer and the opening credits play out over a completely black background with the ominous music; the film also cuts to black for the credits after the final line of dialogue, also - all those hokey shots of the spaceship are omitted in Bava's cut; they were shot by someone at AIP. I really must pick up that Italian DVD.

Bava is one of the few great black and white cinematographers who made the transition to being a great colour cinematographer effortlessly and creating exquisite and memorable colour lighting schemes. Planet of the Vampires is testament to his genius in making something special out of practically nothing; the sets were incomplete, the budget very low and the schedule short, but look at what he achieved.

[Fletch F. Fletch]

This film features some of the woodenest acting ever to grace the screen, and some of the cheapest special effects, but somehow Bava manages to produce atmosphere from pure colour. Easy to see the influence on Argento in Suspiria and Inferno (in terms of colour, that is...). And it's got some of the kinkiest spacesuits ever.

Agreed. Bava also has some pretty kinky outfits going on in Danger: Diabolik as well!



There is some great use of color in this one as well and I just love the playful mood of the entire movie.

[Lino]

I haven't of course seen many Bava movies or else I wouldn't be asking this question but what film of his do you think most resembles Suspiria or Inferno in terms of look, style and/or theme?

[David Ehrenstein]

As Bava invented the giallo with Blood and Black Lace, that would be the film. They share some visual interests overall, but Argento is far more baroque.

[Michael]

Yeah but Suspiria and Inferno are not giallo.

Annie, Lisa and the Devil most definitely. Since you haven't seen it yet, it's best for me not to say anything more about this amazing film. I saw this film more than a month ago and it continues to haunt me like a music box that keeps playing from far away. I LOVE this film so much.. and I just know you will feel the same way.

[djali999]

Well... there's not really anything in Bava's work that is a total, simple and clear link to Suspiria or Inferno, but I think Kill, Baby... Kill! come closest in terms of the atmosphere of delirium.

Michael, don't forget that the stalk through the antiques shop in Blood and Black Lace is the basis for so much of what happens in the attics of Inferno and Suspiria...

[Michael]

A section of Lisa and the Devil involves a woman becoming lost in a strange extention of the mansion.. with weird wallpapers, designs, murals...and the red/green lighting shimmers like jewels in the dark. As she walks through one of the mysterious hallways, a door in the background suddenly creaks open for no reason - very much like Suspiria just before that woman falls into wires. Lisa and the Devil 's style is very baroque and dreamy in the same sense as Suspiria but Argento pushes it to the next level, making it all his own.

[David Ehrenstein]

I don't think Argento could have worked with either Telly Savalas or Elke Sommer.