As committed as the Fantasia International Film Festival (“Fantasia”), now in their 29th edition, has been in securing the premiering edge of genre film from all around the world, recognizing and setting trends, they have likewise set their sights on paying tribute to and acknowledging influences from years past of projects that may have slipped under the radar of audience reception in recent decades. Nine entries in their Fantasia Retro sidebar addressed the need—and the entertainment—in taking a second look at these filmic forebearers. I profile three that I had the fortunate opportunity to view.
With The Devil’s Bride (1974) I can now check off my bucket list the Lithuanian musical I’ve been meaning to see. For that matter, it may be the only Lithuanian musical I will ever need to see, now that I’ve caught its North American premiere at Fantasia in a gorgeous restoration by the Lithuanian Film Centre. At the time of its release, The Devil’s Bride was one of the most successful and celebrated movies in the Lithuanian cinema of the Soviet era and its first rock opera, garnering comparisons to Jesus Christ Superstar (1973) and Tommy (1975), which both came out about the same time.
Based on the 1945 fantasy novel Baltaragis's Mill, the most notable work by writer, poet and political activist Kazys Boruta, and in turn based on Lithuanian folklore, the story carries hints of John Milton’s 1667 poem “Paradise Lost” (with rebellious angels exiled from Heaven) and Eastern European fairy tales involving the “rash promise” motif (such as in “Rumplestiltskin” where a miller’s daughter offers her first born in exchange for escaping death by being able to spin straw into gold). I don’t know what it is about millers and their daughters, but the same blind promise is granted in The Devil’s Bride.
Once Pinciukas (a puckish Gediminas Girvainis) has been demoted from disobedient angel to an exiled devil cast out of Heaven into the pond of the miller Baltaragis (Vasilijus Simčičius), he is captured and put to work at the mill. To lessen his work load, Pinciukas strikes a deal with Baltaragis, granting him success at the mill and the hand of the beautiful, melodius Marcelé (Vaiva Mainelytė), if he is awarded their first born. The boon backfires on the miller when Marcelé dies in childbirth and their daughter Jurga—the spitting image of her mother (and likewise played by Mainelytė)—is doomed to marry the devil. But in rides the dashingly handsome Girdvainis (Regimantas Adomaitis), he and Jurga fall in love, and Pinciukas is left warding off the advances of the miller’s sister Ursule, who the miller attempts to pawn off on him. When Ursule saves Pinciukas from a vengeful mob, his affections transfer to her, they marry and happily have children of their own.
Entirely sung, The Devil’s Bride requires cultural allowances. I can’t say the music was my idea of a rock opera, but I certainly enjoyed the colorful cinematography and Arūnas Žebriūnas’ zany, spirited direction.
I knew something was up in the opening sequence. Ordinarily, giallo films—like many genre films—begin with the murder or the dead body of a woman. I’ve never quite understood the gendered necessity of this narrative trope, but can’t buck a lineage that stretches back decades. So it was a refreshing—if that word is appropriate—surprise when the film opens with a muscular man being tortured and stabbed with knives. That scenario segues into the painting of St. Sebastian who—instead of being pierced with arrows—has been martyred by sharp cutlery.
My gaydar kicked into high gear. You don’t introduce St. Sebastian without suggesting inversion or gender variance as some kind of perverse subplot and, sure enough, The House With Laughing Windows leads its male protagonist through several badly-lit if atmospheric set pieces in order to deliver a truly twisted joke at film’s end.
Again, from Kat Ellinger’s write-up, our protagonist Stefano (Lino Capolicchio) arrives in a seemingly sleepy village to restore the church mural of St. Sebastian—already disturbing in its replacement of arrows with knives—and finds himself drawn into chaotic and sinister scenarios, let alone the beds of every available woman in sight. Comparing Stefano to the male protagonist in Robin Hardy’s The Wicker Man (1973), Ellinger writes: “Stefano is the outsider—a man of intellect and rational curiosity—entering a closed, rural world shaped by silence, denial, and local tradition. Here, the past is not a place of clarity, but a conduit for primordial madness and deadly intent.”
Ex-cop Sean Boyd (James Brolin, at his hunkiest) spends the entire film chasing Gus Soltic (Cliff Gorman, former Boys of the Band nelly turned perverse psychopath) because he’s kidnapped his daughter Kathy (Abbie Bluestone), on her birthday no less, mistaking her for his intended victim: the daughter of a wealthy real-estate magnate responsible for tearing down his families’ properties and decimating their livelihood. He wants a million dollars as recompense. It’s bad enough that Gus is willing to kill anyone who gets in his way, but his gradual collapse into a kind of reverse Stockholm Syndrome where he becomes attracted to his teenage hostage feels genuinely icky, right down to the kiss. It leads me to wonder if this film wasn’t an influence on Donald Trump at 34 when he was first fielding questions about potentially running for President?
Supporting turns are solid. Richard Castellano as Lt. Tonelli has a comic steal when he samples frozen yogurt for the first time. Frozen yogurt, you might remember, was introduced to the United States in the 1970s. Mandy Patinkin, long before Barbra Streisand sang to him bathing naked, and before he nearly drove himself crazy painting dots on a canvas, has a brief, accent-laden cameo as Alessandro, a Puerto Rican cab driver with crazy driving skills and few good things to say about white people. Julie Carmen’s sensuous beauty as Maria, a street smart young clerk from the New York City dog pound, stole every scene she was in. Bug-eyed Dan Hedaya as Sergeant Barnes is—as Michael Gingold describes in his Fantasia program capsule—“juicily overacted.” Gingold also notes that an 11-year-old C. Thomas Howell served as Bluestone’s stunt double.
Finally, I have to admit that one of my favorite scenes in the film is when we’re allowed a peep into a 42nd Street peep show back when the Deuce wasn’t overrun by the horrifying throngs of tourists that inhabit Times Square today.