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MOVIE REVIEW: "Lisa and the Devil"

LISA AND THE DEVIL, Directed by Mario Bava (1974, 92 min)*

Ohhh, Mario Bava. Your command of color and lighting. Your exceptional set design. Your gorgeous cinematography. Your poetic use of symbolism to convey emotion. Your fondness for Gothic horror and unflinching gore.

Also, your complete lack of interest in plot coherence, your obsession with inanimate decorative objects, your sledgehammer-like technique with English language dialogue**, and your masterful use of the seemingly inadvertent awkward pause.

It's the best of both worlds, really!

I went to see Lisa and the Devil last Friday night at the fabulous Coolidge Corner Theater, which is well worth checking out if you're ever in the Boston area. It's this great old art-deco era theater that is in the process of being restored; I kind of hope it takes them a long time, because the main screening room is old and decrepit in the best possible way. It's HUGE, for one thing, with creaky old velour-padded seats, great big quasi-Grecian murals on the walls, and a real stage with real curtains and all. I kind of like that it's creaky and a bit dirty (perfect for watching dusty old horror movies in, for example), so I hope they don't spiff it up too much.

Before I say some things about this movie, both good and bad, let me tip my hat to Mario Bava, lest anyone get upset that I'm not acknowledging his greatness. He's the mentor of Dario Argento, who freely confessed his admiration for Bava's films and the great influence they had on his own work, and you've just gotta give some credit to the guy who inspired the guy who made Suspiria and Deep Red and many other fantastic horror movies.

Bava is also arguably the inventor of the modern slasher movie, thus ensuring a permanent soft spot in my heart. Add to this his extremely classy filmmaking style. I think that (like me) he must've had a secret affection for the histrionics of Gothic romance, because that's where his aesthetic and many of his characters are drawn from: gorgeous settings, dark stormy nights, threatening old matriarchs, mysterious castles, piercing-eyed men with problematic family histories, and plucky, glamorous women in distress. However, also like me, he occasionally got a wee bit sick of the treacle and sappiness that's usually an element of these things, so he decided to replace it.

What with?

Why, incredibly, brutally gory and violent acts of murder and depravity, of course.

The best of both worlds here, my friends. The best of both worlds.

So I think Mario Bava rocks, just so that we have that cleared up. However, this is not to say that I think Lisa and the Devil is a perfect film, although I did find it quite enjoyable. Here's what's what:

"Lisa and the Devil" begins when Lisa, played by Elke Sommer, a tourist in Italy, wanders off from her group, trying to find the origin of some haunting music she's heard. She enters an antique store and finds that the source is a music box, owned by - ready now? - Telly Savalas. Telly bears an uncanny resemblance to a painting she just saw, a medieval representation of the Devil carrying off the dead. Spooked, Lisa runs out of the store, and suddenly everything’s different. She can't find her way back to the square, runs into several odd characters, including the threatening Telly again, and then has a disturbing encounter with a man who acts like he knows her. Trying to get away from him, she accidentally pushes him down a flight of stairs.

So, more wandering and running and fretting. It's dark by now, and Lisa finally runs into other human beings who aren't acting all wonky, as she flags down a car occupied by a rich couple, Francis and Sophia Lehar, and their chauffer George. Francis isn't too fond of George; possibly he’s annoyed because they’re having car trouble. Actually, Francis and Sophia don’t seem overly affectionate, either. Hmmm. They agree to give Lisa a lift, and one of the above-mentioned awkward pauses ensues, as follows:

Lisa looks shiftily at George.
George looks over at Lisa.
Francis looks at Sophia.
Sophia looks at Francis, then at George.
Lisa glances out the window.
Sophia looks at Lisa.
Lisa looks around all confused.
Sophia looks at Francis.
George looks at Lisa.
Sophia gazes raptly at the back of George's head for some time.
George adjusts mirror so that he can look at Sophia.
Lisa looks at George, then glances back over her shoulder at Sophia and Francis.

And then everyone does this some more for a while. I was sure there was something going on here, and it turns out there is, but since we've only just been introduced to three of these characters and since all Lisa's done so far is run around being confused, there's not much to go on. And so I joined the rest of the audience in laughing at all the googly eyes everyone was making.

So, after everyone makes with the looking for another half-hour or so, the car breaks down. In front of a spooky mansion, of course. And the door opens, and who should be peeping out to see what the matter is? Why, our man from the antique store, Telly himself! He is still being weird and spooky, like before, and Lisa is freaked out about this, but the Lehars are asking if they can use the phone to call a mechanic. There is, of course, no phone. We do, however, learn that Telly is the butler here (uh-huh, SURE he is), and that his name is Leandro. While this is all being revealed, who should appear from out of the darkness but…a piercing-eyed young man?

Like any red-blooded young fellow, he zeroes right in on Lisa/Elke; like the guy from before, he’s a bit overfamiliar with her, insisting that she stay and not leave him. Um…the car’s broken, my friend; no need to seem desperate, she’s not going anywhere. Anyway. He just has to make everything okay with his mom, who is yelling from inside the house to make them go away. (Hmmm…piercing eyes…problem with mom…spooky old house…oh yeah. This guy is clearly a catch.) So our boy, named Maximillian, goes in to persuade Mom, aka the Countess, to let them stay the night.

Okay, so we have our characters: Lisa, Leandro the frightening butler/devil, Mr. and Mrs. Lehar, Maximilian of the piercing eyes, and the Countess. And I’ll bet you already knew that that guy whom Lisa pushed down the stairs would make an appearance or two, didn’t you? Oh, yeah. And, as you might have also guessed, a convoluted story unfolds in the hopes that we will be mystified and scared. I’m not going to describe the rest of the plot in detail, because, you know, what fun would that be, but here’s a quick list of the highlights: there are affairs. There are radishes. There are reincarnations (or something like them). There is necrophilia. There are ghosts. There is capering. There are dreadful proclamations. There are flashbacks to what may or may not be previous lives. There are dinner parties. There are mannequins. There are, duh, murders. All in all, a good fun night.

There’s a lot that’s genuinely good about Lisa and the Devil, and then there are some things will test whether or not you have a deep affection for silliness.

As I’ve come to expect from Mario Bava, this is a gorgeous looking movie. And that’s no small thing, I think, with horror movies, most of which depend heavily on atmosphere for their effect. Bava created a really effective sense of decayed wealth and morbid beauty for almost every scene in the film, and this reinforces a story which deals largely with ghosts, obsession with long-past crimes, and, um, the necrophilia.

The sense of displacement needed to carry off a plot like this is there, and it’s very well done. We don’t see Lisa in her everyday world for long, but there’s no doubt that after she exits the antique shop, her world is turned completely around. This gives the film a dreamlike quality that makes the improbable events to come easier to swallow. Sound, lighting, color and setting all work together to make this effect stronger, and for the most part, these elements remain consistently excellent throughout the movie.

The movie also has a playful and wry sense of humor, which occasionally relieves all the histrionics. Telly Savalas’ performance can’t go unmentioned here; he seems to think he might be in a different movie than everyone else at certain points, but damn is he having a good time playing an obsequious, but secretly resentful, butler with a love for bullying hapless young German girls. He’s also the Devil. And he has some super-fabulous butler outfits.

Then there are my two favorite characters, the Lehars. I never get sick of rich married people who hate each other, and these two actors pull off the aristocratic-bitchiness thing with flair: "If this is your attempt act like a man, Francis...I'm not impressed." "Slut." Heh-heh. The Lehars are also involved in the best murder scene in the movie, but I’ll leave that for you to discover. Suffice to say, Sophia Lehar is a thorough woman.

All in all, this is a film that relies heavily on the creation of a dreamlike, frightening atmosphere, as opposed to story, to succeed, and pulls it off quite well. However, there are some features of the movie that draw our attention to a deficiency of the filmmaking or to the staginess of the whole setup, and this bursts the bubble that Bava has so carefully created. Now I, personally, have a deep and abiding love for hokiness, so I don’t feel that the following nitpicks make the film less fun to watch. If you’re one of those sticklers for, like, COMPETENCE, who always insists that every little thing MAKE SENSE or something, you may want to consider the following a warning.

Despite the great cinematography in this film, there is one small problem: the cinematographer’s recurring problem with tangential shots of the decor. To the point where I was thinking maybe he should be seeing someone about it. You can bet any amount of money you like that anytime there’s some lovin’, or some killing, or some Dreadful Revelations, that the camera will wander off around the room and focus on one or more of the knick-knacks. And there are a lot of knick-knacks in this place, so be warned: if you have an aversion to statuary, you might want to rethink watching this film.

Then, there’s the storyline, which, as the Victorian housewife said, left me a bit unsatisfied. I’m not a girl who asks for all the strings to be neatly tied; I often like a little ambiguity. But. The number of swoops and swerves and astonishing about-faces that the story is asked to do is a bit too much for it to handle. You get the sense that the filmmakers hoped if they kept adding scenes, something would come of it; but the layer upon layer of complexities got to be almost laughable. Actually, no. It was laughable, for real. But in a good way. I mean what’s with you, anyway? You got something against laughter?

And then, there’s Elke. Did you know that Elke Sommer speaks seven languages and has a moderately successful painting career? Did you know that she was voted Most Promising Newcomer in the 1964 Golden Globes? Did you know that she kicks ass at tennis? Did you know that she directs, too?

Well, from watching this movie you’d know none of that, because man oh man does she come off vapid. She looks vapid when she’s running away in terror. She looks vapid when she’s making small talk (especially because, 10 minutes into this situation, most of us would say, "I’ll be walking home now, thanks…ACROSS the OCEAN!" and bolt for the door). She looks vapid when Maximillian is wooing her. She looks especially vapid when she’s Trying To Figure Things Out; the little perplexed frown hovering over her empty eyes as she gazes off into the distance is really something to behold. So I’m just saying: Elke, I know you’re not dumb. But this movie sure didn’t.

Oh. And one more thing. Her famous pout? TOOOOOOtally fake. I’m sorry, but it’s true. Maybe there was a little poutiness, and some genius told her to “emphasize” it; I don’t know. But you can tell. She’s all pursed, fer Crissakes! She! Is! Pursing! And it just vexes me, because, I mean, Elke? You’re a hottie! You don’t need to purse! You’re 36-22-36! Men will not look at you and say, "If only she were a bit poutier…" I promise!

Anyway. In addition to the vapidness, there’s one more problem with Lisa, and this one has nothing to do with Elke. My question here is, now why EXACTLY does her character fall for Maximillian?*** I know there’s a lot to choose from, but it might have given us some insight into Lisa’s character had we known precisely which of his qualities made for the flutter in her heart. Was it his Mod-meets-George Gordon, Lord Byron sense of fashion? Was it the pickup lines ("This is the last rose of summer…and it waited…for you to…return.")? The voice that closely resembles Derek Zoolander faking an Italian accent? His method of kissing, which seems to involve slowly nibbling off the face of his beloved? Or was it his sexy foreplay? (Just trust me, there’s nothing like a little chloroform and some palsied trembling to get a girl in the mood!)

And those are all my nitpicks about this movie. So before I accidentally write a novel, let me sum things up thusly: all in all, Lisa and the Devil is an entertaining ride. There’s great atmosphere, great sets, great lighting, great camerawork, and great amounts of gooey, drippy, yummy cheese. And some really gross stuff.

*Note that this review is of the original version of this film, not the hacked-up re-release, commonly titled The Devil in the House of Exorcism, which by all accounts sucked. Back

**And maybe also Italian dialogue, but then, how would I know? Back

***I hope you’re not mad at me for spoiling that plot point. But come on. I said he had PIERCING EYES, what’d you think was going to happen? Back

Posted by hilatron at August 20, 2002 10:28 PM