Vintage Pulp

December 20 2022

ALL THROUGH THE HOUSE

Hello? Is anybody there? Santa? Is that you?

Our sprint through movies this December continues today with the Italian Christmas favorite—Estratto dagli archivi segreti della polizia di una capitale europea, for which you see a festive yule themed poster above. It was painted by Mario Piovano and just oozes holiday spirit. Right. Well, obviously not. This couldn’t be a Christmas movie unless Christmas makes you want to kill everyone around you. But it qualifies as a gift from us to you, because we’re going to save you the time you might have spent watching it.

The title translates as, “extract from the secret police archives of a European capital,” but was shortened to Tragic Ceremony for its English language release. The Italian title would seem to indicate that this is a giallo flick, but it’s actually more in the realm of gothic horror. Basically, a quartet of carefree hippies stumble upon and must survive assorted evils, including a black mass, a phantom gas station, and spurts of megaviolence, all loosely related somehow to a string of possibly cursed pearls.

The movie stars Camille Keaton, who’s not well known today, but headlined perhaps the most infamous grindhouse offering of the 1970s—Day of the Woman, better known in some quarters as I Spit on Your Grave. Keaton appears here six years earlier, and is stranded with her hippie-hedonist friends in a creepy old manse where she’s seized upon by the loony, aristocratic occupants as a potential sacrifice. She escapes, but the aftereffects of her close call are numerous and gory.

Critics hindered by their own knowledge of niche cinema to the extent that they can’t see the forest for the trees tend to describe this movie as underrated, but it really isn’t, even if you accept it as a sly commentary on the generational clash between the counterculture and the gentry. At one point a distressed Máximo Valverde asks, “What’s happening? What’s going on?” Well, you’ve ended up in a below average horror movie, Max. It happens. Revisionist critics can’t help you. Estratto dagli archivi segreti della polizia di una capitale europea premiered in Italy today in 1972.

Italy, Estratto dagli archivi segreti della polizia di una capitale europea, Tragic Ceremony, Camille Keaton, Tony Isbert, Luciana Paluzzi, Irina Demick, Máximo Valverde, Luigi Pistilli, Mario Piovano, poster art, cinema, horror, movie review

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

November 11

1918—The Great War Ends

Germany signs an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railroad car outside of CompiÃ¨gne in France, ending The Great War, later to be called World War I. About ten million people died, and many millions more were wounded. The conflict officially stops at 11:00 a.m., and today the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month is annually honored in some European nations with two minutes of silence.

November 10

1924—Dion O'Banion Gunned Down

Dion O’Banion, leader of Chicago’s North Side Gang, is assassinated in his flower shop by members of rival Johnny Torrio’s gang, sparking the bloody five-year war between the North Side Gang and the Chicago Outfit that culminates in the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.

November 10

1940—Walt Disney Becomes Informer

Walt Disney begins serving as an informer for the Los Angeles office of the FBI, with instructions to report on Hollywood subversives. He eventually testifies before HUAC, where he fingers several people as Communist agitators. He also accuses the Screen Actors Guild of being a Communist front.

November 9

1921—Einstein Wins Nobel

German theoretical physicist Albert Einstein is awarded the Nobel Prize for his work with the photoelectric effect, a phenomenon in which electrons are emitted from matter as a consequence of their absorption of energy from electromagnetic radiation. In practical terms, the phenomenon makes possible such devices as electroscopes, solar cells, and night vision goggles.

November 9

1938—Kristallnacht Begins

Nazi Germany’s first large scale act of anti-Jewish violence begins after the assassination of German diplomat Ernst vom Rath by Herschel Grynszpan. The event becomes known as Kristallnacht, and in total the violent rampage destroys more than 250 synagogues, causes the deaths of nearly a hundred Jews, and results in 25,000 to 30,000 more being arrested and sent to concentration camps.

November 8

1923—Hitler Stages Revolt

In Munich, Germany, Adolf Hitler leads the Nazis in the Beer Hall Putsch, an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the German government. Also known as the Hitlerputsch or the Hitler-Ludendorff-Putsch, the attempted coup was inspired by Benito Mussolini’s successful takeover of the Italian government.

November 8

1932—Roosevelt Unveils CWA

U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt unveils the Civil Works Administration, an organization designed to create temporary winter jobs for more than 4 million of the unemployed.