Not every filmmaker gets to do only what they want. Sometimes they take movies to get a paycheck. And, as we have seen in this look back at the films of Mario Bava, this is more often than not the case where Bava is concerned. ‘Roy Colt and Winchester Jack’ seems to reek of a …
With the success of ‘Black Sunday,’ and ‘Black Sabbath,’ Mario Bava was given full creative control over his next film, 1964’s ‘Blood and Black Lace.’ The producers of ‘Blood’ expected a basic murder mystery film, but Bava, in being true to himself, delivered something else.
Buoyed by the success of ‘Baron Blood,’ producer Alfred Leone offered Mario Bava carte blanche for his next project. Bava decided to collaborate with Leone on re-writing a story that he had wanted to do for some time. It was called ‘Lisa and the Devil.’ As the movie opens, Lisa Reiner (played by Elke Summer) …
The sub-title for this long-winded movie could have been, ‘well, we all gotta eat.’ In 1966, saddled with a contract that he wanted out of, Mario Bava agreed to take on ‘Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs,’ for producer Fulvio Lucisano. The film is a follow-up to the US hit, ‘Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini …
For much of his career, Mario Bava was either up or down, fighting to make the movies he wanted to make, and ending up compromising and making movies that he had to make. Along with ‘Lisa and the Devil,’ ‘Rabid Dogs,’ was another pet project, coming late in the director’s career. Unfortunately the film was …