Olivia (1983) [filmed in 1981]

... aka: Beyond the Bridge
... aka: Double Jeopardy
... aka: Faces of Fear
... aka: Im Blutrausch des Wahnsinns (Murderous Frenzy of Madness)
... aka: Mad Night
... aka: Olivia: dulce asesina (Olivia: Sweet Killer)
... aka: Prozzie
... aka: Taste of Sin, A

Directed by:
Ulli Lommel

Built in the 1830s, the London Bridge once spanned the Thames River and was the talk of the whole city. However, by the 1960s it was slowly sinking into the riverbed and had to be removed. Instead of destroying the historic landmark, the city decided to put it up for auction. Missouri entrepreneur Robert Paxton McCulloch (best known for his chainsaws and oil company) ended up putting in the winning bid of 2.5 million dollars. The bridge was then dismantled and transported back to the United States. In his search for oil, McCulloch had previously purchased a bunch of land in northern Arizona and founded Lake Havasu City there. Now he wanted to invest big bucks into something to attract tourists. The bridge, a way to allow people to see a once important piece of architecture from a foreign country without having to actually go there, was perfect. Over a three year period and at a cost of over 7 million dollars, the bridge was carefully reconstructed stone by stone across the Colorado River. It was finally opened to the public in late 1971 and remains a popular destination to this day.

Not surprisingly, a number of filmmakers decided to take advantage of all the publicity. The first movie to ever be filmed there was the heist film The Day of the Wolves (1971). Later, two horror films were made using the bridge as its centerpiece: the made-for-TV Terror at London Bridge (1985) and this one. The former involved the spirit of Jack the Ripper being transported to the U.S.. Olivia is more of a psychological horror / drama with the bridge taking on a symbolic purpose. Lommel was inspired to make the film after a trip to Lake Havasu.

A London prostitute (Bibbe Hansen) with a sweet view of the bridge from her apartment window is entertaining an America soldier client (Nicholas Love). He seems nice and polite at first, even when he asks her to handcuff him, tease him and insult him (“You're the most disgusting man that I've ever met in my entire life!”), but instructs her not to untie him even if he begs her to. When he starts getting loud, she tells him she's had enough, asks him to leave and unlocks him. He then promptly beats her to death. Watching the whole sordid act play out from a hole in the wall is the hooker's young daughter, Olivia (Amy Robinson). The mother's body is dumped into the Thames and later fished out. A detective (played by the director) tries to break through to little Olivia but she's in too much shock to be of any help.

Jump ahead 15 or so years and we meet the now 20-year-old Olivia (Suzanna Love). Olivia is married to an older welder named Richard (Jeff Winchester) who, while perhaps not filmdom's most monstrous husband, is pretty damn bad. He's moody, insecure, insensitive and too prideful to even allow his wife to work a simple waitress job. Richard married her when she was only 16 and, to him, she's property whose purpose doesn't extend beyond cooking, cleaning and having sex with him whenever he wants it (whether or not she's in the mood being of no concern). Since he's usually gone late into the night, Olivia has had a lot of time alone to think, reflect and fantasize. After having to spend a depressing birthday alone, she starts hearing her mother's voice and finds herself being guided by her. She dresses up as a hooker in black leather boots, a miniskirt and sunglasses, goes down to the bridge where other hookers hang out and is soon picked up by a guy who takes her back to his mannequin-filled apartment. There, she ties him up and then beats him to death with a glass vase. (“Now you can show mommy how much you love her.”)

American engineer Michael Grant (Robert Walker Jr.), who's been flown over to England to help determine whether they should try to fix or demolish the bridge, starts spending a lot of time there. He spots Olivia several times; once in her normal attire walking her dog and another time dressed as a prostitute and becomes intrigued. The two end up going back to his hotel and, because he's kind and not into the kinkier stuff, they have “normal” sex and no one ends up dead. The two continue their passionate affair. After she returns home late on numerous occasions, Richard becomes suspicious. He catches Olivia and Michael kissing, there's a struggle and Richard falls over the side of the bridge. Olivia flees into the night.

Four years later, after the bridge has been moved over to America, Michael goes to Arizona to see it. Much to his shock, he hears a very familiar voice giving a boat tour. The woman, who goes by the name of Jenny, is a dead ringer for Olivia aside from her dark hair, glasses and more conservative attire. “Jenny” works there selling condos. Sometimes she behaves like she knows Mike, sometimes she doesn't. Either way, he gently pushes his way back into her life and soon notices she shares many things in common with the troubled woman he'd met in London years earlier, including the rather distinct habit of opening beer bottles with her teeth. That's because she is her. The romance starts up once again, but Olivia regresses to her old self. She dyes her hair back to blonde, dresses sexier and makes comments about how her mother may not approve of them getting back together. Like it or not, sometimes it's for the best just to let some people go... granted that's even possible.

Olivia seems like an attempt to bridge the gap between “respectable” Hitchcockian psychological thrillers of the previous decades and 80s exploitation / slasher flicks. The childhood flashbacks (complete with bedtime readings of classic fairy tales), the two different locations, the parallel / converging story lines, the dual personalities and the bridge used as the common link between the first half and the second mean there's subtext to spare here. Hell, the final sequence even features a quite literal disposal of baggage. At this point in his career, the director still had very good visual instinct, which was colorfully put front and center in his underrated The Boogeyman (1980) and is here in abundance, too. The interiors are lit with care in a noir style with central images neatly blending in with the darkness surrounding the edges of the frame. There are also some wonderfully filmed outdoor sequences, such as Michael encountering Olivia on the bridge as the sun sets behind them and the camera sometimes allows a peak of the light to enter and overwhelm the frame. The visual presentation wonderfully complements the plot and psychological content, as does an eerie piano and synth score from Joel Goldsmith.

Is the above enough to overcome a few rough patches, the occasional wonky editing cut and a bit of schlock like someone being murdered with an electric toothbrush? For me personally, yes, it was.

One can wonder what the hell happened to Lommel and his talent over time (I usually do after seeing a genuinely good effort out of him like this one or THE TENDERNESS OF WOLVES), but one could wonder the same about his then-wife Love. While not the world's best actress, she wasn't half bad either and certainly appealing, talented and beautiful enough to warrant a better career than what she actually had. I also can't think of another actress during this same time period who was co-writing and producing most of their own movies. After their divorce, Love bowed out of show business and now reportedly lives the quiet life in Maine with her daughter. She and Lommel also teamed up for the punk film Blank Generation (1978), the two Boogeyman movies, BrainWaves (1982) and The Devonsville Terror (1983). I'm looking forward to watching some of those.

This was released under a whole slew of alternate titles. Produced in 1981 as Faces of Fear and also called Beyond the Bridge at some point, this played theatrically in the U.S. and Canada under the title A Taste of Sin. It was called Mad Night in France and Double Jeopardy in Australia and several other countries. The UK release is called Prozzie (slang for prostitute).

★★★

Die Zärtlichkeit der Wölfe (1973)

... aka: Tenderness of the Wolves
... aka: Tenderness of Wolves, The

Directed by:
Ulli Lommel

Prior to his final arrest in 1924, Fritz Haarmann already had a long criminal record; having been arrested for crimes as far ranging as child molestation to burglary to physically assaulting his own father. In and out of prison and mental institutions for a number of years (at one point he'd escaped indefinite internment in an asylum and fled to Switzerland; returning to his German homeland under an alias), Haarmann's longest stint behind bars happened between 1914 and 1918. During that time, World War I had come and gone. Upon release, Haarmann found that getting away with criminal activity in a now-bankrupt Germany was easier than ever before. Starting in 1918, he began luring young men (aged anywhere from 22 to just 10 years old) back to his apartment, where he'd have sex (or rape), torture and murder them; usually by biting through their necks. Bodies were them dismembered and disposed of in the Leine River. Haarmann, along with his lover / accomplice Hans Grans (who really didn't get his hands dirty but had no issue reaping the rewards), would then either keep or sell the clothing and belongings of the victims on the black market. Because Haarmann was a well-known trader in contraband meat, one wouldn't have to take too many guesses to know where the "pork" he was peddling came from, either.

Fritz Haarmann

After about six years of this (during which time Haarmann worked as a police informant!), bones kept washing up on the river bank. The river was dragged and a horrifying discovery was made: over 500 human bones belonging to at least 22 different victims were found. Because of his past criminal record, Haarmann was a chief suspect. Police raided his home, found the belongings of numerous missing men and the rest is history. Though he himself claimed to have killed "somewhere between 50 and 70" young men (usually lured away from the central railway station in Hanover), Haarmann was suspected in the murders of 27 but was convicted for just 24. He was executed by guillotine in 1925 at the age of 45 and his head was kept in a jar so scientists could study his brain and, to this day, is kept at the Göttingen Medical School.

Despite being one of history's most notorious serial killers, having earned such nicknames as "The Butcher of Hanover," "The Vampire of Hanover" and "The Wolf Man" by the press of his day, strangely enough there have only been three major films directly based upon his crimes. The first was Fritz Lang's masterpiece M (1931), a landmark in adult filmmaking that's still widely-viewed and respected to this day and boasts a brilliant central performance by Peter Lorre. Much later there was the seldom-watched 1995 film Der Totmacher ("The Deathmaker") starring Götz George, which I have on my ever-growing list of movies I want to see before I croak. Smack in the middle is Tenderness of the Wolves, directed by Ulli Lommel, who if nothing else has had an interesting career. 

Heavily involved in the respected New German Cinema movement of the 60s and 70s, Lommel eventually married DuPont heiress Suzanna Love and moved to the United States, where the two would collaborate on many projects. The most watched of these is probably The Boogeyman (1980); an interesting, colorful film about a vengeful spirit trapped inside of a mirror that's often falsely labeled as a slasher flick. After Love and Lommel parted ways, the director found it increasingly more difficult to find funding for his films. That is, until he discovered digital video in the mid 2000s. Since then, he's cranked out a startling number of absolutely terrible genre films, often based on real life serial killers (perhaps trying to cash in on this past glory). Whatever reputation he'd cultivated early on now gone, no list of "Worst Directors of All Time" is complete without mention of Mr. Lommel. However, despite his much-deserved bad reputation as of late, don't let that keep you from watching this one. It's actually very good.

Head clean shaven to instantly recall Lorre's interpretation of the character (not to mention Nosferatu) and equipped with a boyish and disarming, yet creepy, smile, Kurt Raab gives a memorable performance as the predatory, pathetic, lonely serial killer. As the film opens, police invade Haarmann's apartment and catch him bed with an underage boy. He's brought in to the police station where his extensive record ("...prostitution, theft, receipt of stolen goods, seduction of minors, panhandling, vagrancy, assault, fraud, forgery...") is read. Figuring he wouldn't be doing them any good in prison, the police chief instead enlists his aid as as an informant. Given a badge, Haarmann then hits the local train station and keeps an eye out for any young men who strike his fancy. Many destitute, broken runaways filter through the area, Haarmann lays out two options for them: either he'll take them to the police station, or he'll help them out by giving them money and helping them find a job... if they'll come back to his apartment with him. Many young boys enter his apartment, but few leave, and the next morning - after lots of chopping and sawing sounds that annoy his neighbors - Haarmann emerges with a pot full of fresh meat; some of which he sells to restaurant owner Louise (Brigitte Mira).

Haarmann is deeply in love with Hans (Jeff Roden); a bisexual hustler and con artist who really doesn't care much about him and is just in it for the money. Hans would rather be dancing and partying with prostitutes than dealing with his disturbed lover, but he's not above helping to cover up the crimes when it suits his needs. The two do various scams to make money, including dressing up as priests to get clothing donations, which they then turn around and sell, and dealing in cigarettes and booze on the black market. Many people surrounding Haarmann know good and well that something's not right about him, and make casual asides about his "young boys," but no one seems to want to step forward. Others, including his prostitute friend Dora (Ingrid Caven), see dead bodies in his apartment, but turn a blind eye. Even Hanover's lead detective Kommissar Braun (Wolfgang Schenck), the man who's been employing Haarmann as a informant, has been receiving packages of meat and other goods from the killer, and is reluctant to really investigate matters. A confession from Haarmann's nosy downstairs neighbor, spinster Frau Linder (Margit Carstensen), who's been hearing the banging and chopping late into the night plus sees him hauling off large wrapped packages to the river for disposal, and pressure from the government finally results in a sting operation to entrap the killer.

Written by its star and produced by leading German filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder (who also plays a small role), this is very well-made and acted, sticks rather closely to the known facts and is unflinching yet non-exploitative in its depiction of the horrific crimes; showing us just enough of the horrific deeds and never wallowing in them for sensationalism. It's also rather frank and matter-of-fact in its portrayal of homosexuality, which probably isn't how this same material would had been handled if it were filmed in - say - the UK or the United States, at this same time. Concentration on the depressed, impoverished setting - making one aware of just how something this horrible could continue on for as long as it did - is perhaps the film's strongest attribute of all. Post-war Germany is shown to be a place filled with people who are weak, hungry and extremely desperate; weak and hungry enough for adults to casually indulge in criminal activity and for the young to easily fall into a psycho's trap; desperate enough for otherwise normal people to ignore horrific things going on all around them. The depths people will sink to for money, food, clothing, small joys most of us take for granted or just to get their basic needs met greatly enhances the mood of this bleak, lurid film.

Though it was not distributed in the U.S. during the video era (not surprising since it earned it an X certificate numerous places), Anchor Bay finally issued a DVD in 1999. The audience appeal for something like this is certainly limited; not only because of the gay content but also because it is as far from "feel good movie" as one can get, even within the genre. Not even the presence of dark humor lightens things up much... and the film is honestly all the better for that. Murder, poverty and the fallout of war are all painted with the the same ugly, damning brush.

★★★1/2