Le Bâtard

Another great film from writer/director Duccio Tessari!

The highlights of the film are Giuliano Gemma and Klaus Kinski who play two brothers who don't always see eye to eye and their mother - Rita Hayworth. They're a crime family. There is some overacting. There are some odd choices... but by God it is entertaining to behold. It looks like they all have fun with their roles, and I was here for it! Kept me interested throughout. Bond girl, Claudine Auger, is in here for a bit but doesn't do much.

The other part I appreciated is Duccio Tessari's directing. The way he reveals information is intriguing. And the man knows how to film landscapes.

In Gangsters under the Sofa: Giuliano GEMMA and Klaus KINSKI as Rita HAYWORTH's sons

Anyone who has a family like that shouldn't be surprised if life doesn't go quite as smoothly...

Cult director Duccio TESSARI once again lets his cynicism run wild and gives the interested audience an enjoyable crime thriller. But beware! Things are absolutely not nice and friendly here! Malice and copious amounts of alcohol give each other the power to callousness. And then the cast! Casting GEMMA and KINSKI as half-brothers is a great thing! And then the slightly aging stunner Rita HAYWORTH (I just say: GILDA, the goddess is dancing!!!) shines as the mother from the deepest pit of hell you can only imagine. As a teenager in the eighties, HAYWORTH has of course become a very sad symbol for me. Similar to Rock HUDSON, who became a public figure of suffering for AIDS, this applies to Rita HAYWORTH in relation to ALZHEIMER. To this day, I still remember with horror paparazzi photos of the already confused Hollywood star. At that time, the public was not yet aware of the extent and horror of this age-related disease. When I see Rita HAYWORTH today, I always have this terrible tragedy in the back of my mind.

About the other divas in the film: Margaret LEE and BOND girl Claudine AUGER are two of the most desirable beauties of ItaloCinema, and then in a double pack. It's crazy! It was shot in New Mexico and grossed ITL 702 million at the Italian box office. In West Germany, 858,000 visitors wanted to see this very special family constellation.

Of course, the ending of the film is not revealed here. It's very special! I read somewhere that there is supposed to be another version in which HAYWORTH and AUGER give the ending a very special charm.

I am not a great spaghetti crime flicks fan. Not at all. But this one is worth in some points. I think it's an acceptable time waster, where we can watch one more time the lost Rita Hayworth, already "dead" as an actress, a real one, I mean. Don't forget that she had the terrific Alzheimer disease - lost of memory - and that she forgot almost all her script lines. The sequence where she talks to Giuliano Gemma in the drawing room, and holds a bottle of whisky, as she wanted to read the bottle label...I guess she actually read her script lines. She had the very same problem on the set of other films, such as WRATH OF GOLD. When I knew that, I must admit that I was devastated. So sad. It really made me sick.

So, back to this feature, I spent a good time watching it. A robbery right in the middle of the movie, a sequence with no real connection with the rest of the story, a scheme I have seen in some other films.

But the real mystery, is why the hell an earthquake has to do in such a movie?

As if we saw John Mac Lane in a DIE HARD flick dying in falling from a chair...

Yes a strange movie indeed.

It's a bit difficult for me to give a final verdict on this movie since, despite the running time given by IMDb, I saw it by way of a crummy bootleg of an Asian TV broadcast that had been chopped down to about 67 minutes. Still, what remained was entertaining enough to keep me watching (and wondering what had been left out).

The Bastard is about a thief who's betrayed by his brother, crime boss Klaus Kinski, and has the tendons in his right hand cut. After that the movie is about the thief licking his wounds, enjoying some sexual healing, learning to shoot with his left hand, and planning his revenge. Then, in an odd and way-out-of-left-field plot device, a natural disaster intercedes and makes the ending feel like a cop-out.

It would be nice if somebody brought out a restored version so people could rediscover this one.

Is this film a guilty pleasure? A departure from 60's predictable Hollywood style, there was something strange and hard to place about this film until its Italian roots became apparent. Life on the run is so good for badboy Jason in the earlier part of the film that you know something is going to go terribly wrong. The devastating diva female characters are stunning - a Madonna, whore, and mother (alcoholic middle-aged ex-model) triangle of 60's tigresses between which the attractive but somewhat one-dimensional male lead is trapped. Jason is a mere male, and the opportunity of new love from an angelic saviour is passed in for his compulsory trajectory of revenge. Martha, the mother, is drunk half the time and steal the scenes with her unpredictable manic mood swings around her twisted pride in her criminal sons. The fast cars, luxury homes, nightclub scene of go-go-dancing, the country and western idylls and American dream scenery provide a colourful backdrop and make a trip back to 1968 all the sweeter.