Kurt Menliff!

Christopher Lee's character in The Whip and the Body.

"You always loved violence!"

Film Time - Whip and the Body

This also arrived today. My lucky day, I guess!! Film time tonight, no doubt about it. And this Mario Bava film is the uncut version. It was mutilated in almost any country it was released in, in 1963. Can imagine that.

In US it is called What!, and as I can understand, that seems absolutely logical concerning what was left of it after the censorship had sunk its teeth into it.

Here are some sequences from it. The uncut version!!

Additional note: Oooooohhh Myyyy Gooooooddd.

If you are only to buy one, I say one film with Christopher Lee – buy this one!!! It is fantastic!!! Best of him I have EVER seen! Part suspense, part gothic horror, a great deal of eroticism, beautiful acting and wonderful music. But make damned sure you buy that UNCUT VERSION. I can very well understand that the censors went berserk when they had seen the original movie. And this was1963! Jeeesuus!

Sorry for that outburst. Now back to my normal, collected disposition. But seriously. Buy it!!!

The Whip and the Body

Ouch! That must hurt! The movie The whip and The Body by Mario Bava was concidered so dangerous to the public mind that it was cut to pieces before it was released in the US, under the title What!.

It never made a hit there, which is understandable since it destroyed the whole film. Lee says in the book on his films: "One reviewer asked Why? I don't blame him."

Containing quite an amount of S&M sex, it is quite unfathomable that it was released in 1963! And this is possibly one of the best films Lee have made. It should be in his record as one of the milestones. If you are to buy just one film of him, this is it!

Lee's own comments on the film in the book The Films of Christopher Lee: "This was photographed and directed by Mario Bava and looked absolutely superb. A sort of psycho thriller. (...) I played a character [Kurt Menliff, that is] who returns from the dead and who ends up as a hallucination in the mind of the girl played by Daliah Lavi, who is absolutely beautiful in this picture. We had some very torrid love scenes..."