Today, a tantalizing excerpt from the Operazione paura/Kill, Baby... Kill! chapter of Tim Lucas' forthcoming MARIO BAVA - ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK, which solves the forty year mystery embodied by the question... "Who was John Austin Frazier?"Europix Consolidated waited a full year before releasing
Operazione paura in America, by which time their company name had changed to Europix-International. They branded it with the unfortunate exploitation title
Kill, Baby . . . Kill!— following the patterns of AIP’s
Die, Monster, Die! and Russ Meyer’s
Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!—which was more evocative of plunging daggers, go-go boots, and rock ’n’ roll than the suggestive, turn-of-the-century chills the film actually delivered. It was paired with
The Sound of Horror—a black-and-white Spanish import originally titled
El Sonido Prehistórico, which starred (in early, extremely unpromising roles) future horror queens Ingrid Pitt and Soledad Miranda, and a strong contender for the cheapest special effect of all time—an invisible dinosaur.
The resulting double-feature was sold as “The Big S & Q Show,” with lurid advertisements guaranteeing “You’ll Shiver and Quiver with
Kill Baby Kill—and—Shake and Quake with
Sound of Horror!” The combo scored well on the American drive-in circuit, and became something of a cash cow for Europix, who licensed both films for TV syndication as early as 1968. By this time,
Variety finally got around to reviewing the overlooked film, thanks to a belated report filed by Stuart Byron (“Byro.”). He wrote:
“Reviewed for the record since this Italian horror mystery, set in the Transylvanian vampire country, has been in US release via Europix Consolidated since 1966 [sic] though only now playing New York (as a second feature at a 42d St. grind house). But film demonstrates once again, as some European critics think, that in director Mario Bava lies one of Italy’s most important film talents though he specializes in genre product. Kill Baby Kill is a small masterpiece of its kind, comparing favorably with the late Val Lewton’s horror programmers of the ’40s.”Its geographic inaccuracy aside, Byron’s comments are significant in hindsight as one of the earliest American commendations of Bava’s talent. Europix maintained the film as an active theatrical rental for several more years, during which time it trailed other double-bills from Europix (and other companies) as part of weekend triple-bills. In 1972, it was revived once again as part of Europix-International’s legendary triple-bill, “The Orgy of the Living Dead.”
For this program—the brainchild of Europix national sales executive Bob Kilgore, formerly with Gemini Film Corporation—Bava’s film was retitled
Curse of the Living Dead and cut to 75 minutes, by dropping an entire reel. Also in the package were
Revenge of the Living Dead (a similarly shortened retitling of
La lama nel corpo/The Murder Clinic) and
Fangs of the Living Dead, actually Amando de Ossorio’s
Malenka (1967), a Spanish/Italian vampire opus starring Anita Ekberg—the only film of the three not previously released by Europix. Disguised with new, unfamiliar titles and fresh PG ratings, the films were first paraded across America in March 1972 with a brilliantly exploitative ad campaign. It pictured a screaming man in a straitjacket, who, the accompanying text explained, was “John Austin Frazier,” a man committed to a mental hospital after viewing the “Orgy of the Living Dead” triple bill. “If you lose your mind as a result of viewing this explosion of terror,” the ads declared, “you will receive free psychiatric care or be placed, at our expense, in an asylum for the rest of your life!”
The campaign—hilariously fleshed-out in a trailer that showed as little footage from the three films as possible—was masterminded by
Alan Ormsby, a young artist/writer based in Coral Gables, Florida, where he played major creative roles in the making of several well-remembered, independent horror films, including
Deathdream (1972, writer and makeup),
Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things (1972, writer, actor, and makeup) and
Deranged (1974, writer, co-director and makeup). In 1975, he published an instructional book for children,
Movie Monsters: Monster Makeup & Monster Shows To Put On. In later years, he co-authored Paul Schrader’s remake of
Cat People (1982), directed the recursive horror film
Popcorn (1991), and wrote
The Substitute (1996) before his stint as a staff writer for the CBS detective series
Nash Bridges. Ormsby’s personal devotion to the horror genre made the “Orgy of the Living Dead” campaign a classic of boisterous ballyhoo, which also managed to include a surprising grace note of scholarly respect. For the first and only time on an American film poster, the Maestro’s name appeared above the title: “Mario Bava’s
Curse of the Living Dead.”
“I don’t know that I can take credit for that,” laughs Ormsby, “but I certainly knew who Bava was at the time, going all the way back to
Black Sunday. I remember also being very impressed by
Planet of the Vampires, with its scary dreamlike atmosphere. A lot of people, over the years, have asked me about the work I did on that campaign, some of them asking me to sell them the rights to that skull artwork I did for the posters, but I don’t own it anymore.”
Here's the author with a blank book wrapped in the hi res dust jacket. It's a "French fold" jacket to lend the edges extra strength and resilience. As great as this cover looks, it's just an advance proof. The actual dust jacket will be laminated.
This is something that arrived here only today: an advance copy of the hardcover binding, complete with gold embossing.
This is the (low res) Ozalid of the opening spread of the book's HERCULES chapter, which Donna held in our "Invasion of the Ozalids" posting. Compare this to the hi res version below:
Next, I selected at random an average page spread from the interior layout. This one is from the eye-popping chapter on BLOOD AND BLACK LACE.
Just for fun: In case any of you were getting the idea
Coming soon! Order your copy today!
