Femmes Fatales | Sep 6 2018 |
Ascent of a woman.
French actress Hélène Chanel was born Hélène Stoliaroff, and since the fragrance Chanel No. 5 predates her birth we guessed she deliberately borrowed the name for her pseudonym. How's that for some crack detective work? We're more than just pretty faces around here. But we may have been wrong. The story goes that she actually chose “Chancel” for her last name, but her agent—ahem—misspelled it “Chanel.” In any case, Hélène Chanel is how she went through the rest of her career, as she starred in numerous films, including Killer calibro 32, Cjamango, and Asso di picche: Operazione controspionaggio, aka Operation Counterspy. And she's also this person's sister, which would make her Chanel No. 2 as far as we're concerned, except for the fact that her sis chose a different pseudonym. We'll let them sort out the pecking order at the next family get together.
Vintage Pulp | May 31 2015 |
Italian thriller offers viewers an entertaining world of trouble.
It’s probably fair to say Duello dans le monde, aka Ring Around the World has been pretty much forgotten in filmdom, but maybe it shouldn’t be. With a good premise, groovy-jazzy soundtrack, and location shooting in global hotspots like Bangkok, London, Hong Kong, and Rio de Janeiro, this was better than we had any right to expect. Richard Harrison investigates a series of seemingly natural deaths only to find that they were murders—in reality an assassin has shot the victims with pellets made of a frozen concoction that induces heart attacks. The pellets of course then melt and leave no trace behind.
We were drawn to this film by the excellent French language promo poster above painted by Giuliano Nistri, but were surprised to find a semi-competent thriller in the vein of James Bond. Interestingly, there’s a skydiving stunt here that predated the famous Moonraker opening sequence by more than a decade. The stunt isn’t exactly the same, but the idea is close, done low budget. The movie is probably too goofy and cheap to be called good, but on the whole it’s worth a look, and as a bonus it co-stars the wonderful Dominique Boschero. Originally released in Italy in 1966 and called Duello nel mondo, it opened in France as Duel dans le monde today in 1967.