V. Shantaram was an artist of conscience who dedicated himself to using the filmic arts as a means to further social causes. At the time Do Ankhen Barah Haath, Shantaram was a good few years beyond his most acclaimed works.
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Adaptations of books have a history of being derided by the author, but few are as dramatic an example as J’irai cracher sur vos tombes. Minutes into the premiere screening, the author dropped dead.
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I’m on Diabolique, writing about Jean Harlow’s lunatic psycho-sexual comedy Red-Headed Woman which, with just a tweak here and there, could have just as easily been a disturbing horror film.
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It opens as any good film should: with a secret society of hooded criminals — the Crooked Circle — swearing allegiance to one another, to crime, to the occult, to pretty much anything evil they can think of.
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On Diabolique: Carl Theodor Dreyer’s surreal 1932 horror film Vampyr, Sheridan Le Fanu’s “Carmilla,” and the early history of vampire fiction, including dastardly Lord Ruthven and hapless Varney.
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I’m on Diabolique once more, continuing to examine British culture through the lens of films in the BFI Flipside series. This time it’s The Pleasure Girls and a scandal that shook the British government.
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On Diabolique: Beat Girl, Gillian Hills, go-go dancing, hip slang, seedy strip joints, teenage rebellion, and Oliver Reed in a checkered shirt.
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